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ERIC Number: EJ1067757
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1913-9020
EISSN: N/A
Reading on the Computer Screen: Does Font Type Have Effects on Web Text Readability?
Ali, Ahmad Zamzuri Mohamad; Wahid, Rahani; Samsudin, Khairulanuar; Idris, Muhammad Zaffwan
International Education Studies, v6 n3 p26-35 2013
Reading on the World Wide Web has become a daily habit nowadays. This can be seen from the perspective of changes in readers' tendency to be more interested in materials from the internet, than printed media. Taking these developments into account, it is important for web-based instructional designers to choose the appropriate font, especially for long blocks of text, in order to enhance the level of readability for students. Accordingly, this study aims to evaluate the effects of serif and sans serif fonts in the category of screen fonts and print fonts, in terms of Malay text readability on websites. For this purpose, four fonts were selected, namely Georgia (serif) and Verdana (sans serif) for the first respondents and Times New Roman (serif) and Arial (sans serif) for the second respondents. Georgia and Verdana were designed for computer screens display. Meanwhile, Times New Roman and Arial were originally designed for print media. A readability test on a computer screen was conducted on 48 undergraduates. Overall, the results showed that there was no significant difference between the readability of serif and sans serif font of both screen display category and print display category. Accordingly, the research findings and the literature overview, suggest that Verdana followed by Georgia is the better choice in displaying long text on websites. Likewise, as anticipated, Times New Roman and Arial fonts provide good readability for print media, which reinforces their status as the printing font category. However, with the current computer screen capability, it can still be an alternative option for instructional web developers.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Malaysia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A