The effect of typography on recall of the electronic educational content and reading speed in Video Display Terminals (VDTs)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of typographic parameters like interline spacing, font size and word shape on recall of electronic educational content and reading rate on VDTs. A total of 70 undergraduate students were randomly selected and divided into two groups. In experiment 1, one group read one chapter of an e-book with interline spacing of 1.5, and the other group read the same chapter with the interline spacing of 2.0. The reading time was recorded and the participants completed pre and post tests. Experiment 2 was conducted as the experiment 1, with Tahoma Persian 10, and Tahoma Persian 12. Experiment 3 was conducted as the experiment 1, with Tahoma Persian (sans serif), and with Times New Roman Persian (serif). The differences between the means of the test scores, and the means of reading speeds in three experiments were not statistically significant. Developers of the educational content can change the mentioned typographical parameters in the above range without observing any detrimental effect on recall and reading speed.

Keywords

• typography
• reading speed
• e-book