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Effect of Text font, line length and language on online information search

Effect of Text font, line length and language on online information search. Hang Yu Human Centered Design and Engineering University of Washington. Introduction. Understanding of web content can be so different when using different languages.

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Effect of Text font, line length and language on online information search

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  1. Effect of Text font, line length and language on online information search Hang Yu Human Centered Design and Engineering University of Washington

  2. Introduction • Understanding of web content can be so different when using different languages. • People are not actually reading the letters, they are reading the shapes and forms. • I just got my Kindle, and the Chinese version system of Kindle you can choose your file to be presented in one or two columns, which is different from the English Version. However, English papers are presented in one column, two columns and three column.

  3. Literature Review

  4. Overview • Influence of Font Type on Visual Search of Web Content • Effect of Text line length on Information Retrieval of Web Content • Effect of Language on User’s online reading performances • Typography of English and Chinese Language

  5. Typography & Text Font • Typographical arrangement may provide cues for the organization of thought (Jenkins, 1951) • Serif fonts significantly improved recall of information (Michael Gasser, 2005) • There was little impact of font on users’ understanding of web content (Jonathan Ling, 2006) • Although participants performed tasks more quickly with serif fonts, they still preferred sans- serif fonts (Scott, 1993) • Chinese typography had no significant effect on subjects’ reading performance (An-Hsiang Wang*, 2003)

  6. Text Line Length • Comprehension was affected by whitespace, but participants were not affected by line length (Apedoe, 2002) • The effect of line length was significant, with longer line lengths facilitating better scanning and shorter line lengths leading to better subjective outcomes (Jonathan Ling, 2006)

  7. Hypothesis • H1: Serif font can improvethe speed of information search, both in English and in Chinese, compared to San-Serif font. • H2: Text line length will influence the understanding of Online information more when using Chinese than English. • H3: Serif font may be preferred when the information is in Chinese while San-serif font be preferred when in English

  8. Methodology

  9. Variables

  10. Experimental Design • This research used a 3 factor mixed measure design. • Factors: • Two within subject factors: • Text font • Two levels: Serif, San-serif • Text Line Length • Four levels: 55 cpl, 70cpl, 85 cpl, 100 cpl • One between subject: • Language • Two levels: Chinese, English

  11. English & Chinese Fonts • English letters are formed by strokes and spaces. They are more important when comes to the legibility of fonts. • Chinese fonts

  12. English & Chinese Fonts • English letters are formed by strokes and spaces. They are more important when comes to the legibility of fonts. • Based on the same criteria, Chinese font types are chosen.

  13. Material and Instruments • Mock web pages are created using HTML • Participants access the pages using their own machine • Navigation bar added to the left • Pages in Chinese and pages in English have the same content with text in black (#000000 ) and background in white (#FFFFFF)

  14. Participants • 18 participants • 9 participants’ native language are Chinese while 9 are English • All participants are graduate students, who uses Internet on a daily basis • 38.9% of the participants are female

  15. Procedures • A set of 16 search tasks were given to the participants, each fonts show up for 8 times, in which each text line length appear twice. • After the search task, participants were asked to answer several questions about the task they have given. • Finally, participants were asked to choose their preferred text font and text line length.

  16. Statistical Method • A series of 2 × (2× 4) analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to assess the effects of font type (Serif or San-Serif) and line length (55, 70,85 or 100 cpl) and Language (Chinese 0r English) on search and recall task outcome measures

  17. Results

  18. Overview

  19. Effect of font type • When using serif font, time used in search task is shorter. • F= 9.162, p = 0.08, which indicates that Serif font may increase the speed of information search. H1 is supported.

  20. Effect of text length • When text length is 70cpl, time spent on search task is the shortest. • F = 6.340,p = 0.01. H2 is supported

  21. Preference

  22. Discussion&Conclusion

  23. Conclusion & Discussion • Three hypothesis are all supported from the research • Time spent on searching in English and Chinese has no significant difference • Font type and more factor aboutslanguage should be taken into consideration

  24. Thank you Questions?

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