[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Author Index (this month)][Thread Index (this month)][Top of Archive]

Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?

Subject: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?
From: Karel van der Waarde <waarde -at- glo -dot- be>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 10:04:14 +0200


Dear all,

A research article about the following question:

I suppose that having learned the letters sans-serif,
the kids are in a position better to understand what
makes an A an A and a Q a Q without being distracted
by the peculiarities of any particular typeface

was recently published in:


Information Design Journal 2003, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 106-122(17)

"Serifs, sans serifs and infant characters in children's reading books"
(Sue Walker, Linda Reynolds)

Abstract:
This paper describes part of the work of the Typographic Design for Children project at The University of Reading. The aim was to find out whether children found serif or sans serif types easier or more difficult to read, and whether they found text with infant characters (e.g. variants of 'a' and 'g') easier or more difficult to read. We listened to 6-year-old children reading in a classroom, using specially designed, high quality test material set in Gill Sans and Century with and without infant characters. We also asked children for their views about the typefaces used. We used miscue analysis to study tapes of children's reading to see whether more errors occurred in text set in a particular typeface. The substitution category of miscue was explored in more depth to see whether differences were attributable to typeface. The results show that children in our test group could read text set in Gill and Century equally well.

Keywords: typography [for children]; typefaces [for children]; infant characters; serif and sans serif types; children's reading


Some test material can be seen at:
http://www.benjamins.nl/cgi-bin/t_articles.cgi?bookid=IDJ%2011%3A2%2F3&artid=41048041


The article can be obtained from (Be careful: very long url):
http://www.ingenta.com/isis/searching/ExpandTOC/ingenta;jsessionid=mt59b4b9dk3q.circus?issue=pubinfobike://jbp/idj/2003/00000011/00000003&index=3

Kind regards,
Karel.
waarde -at- glo -dot- be

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SEE THE ALL NEW ROBOHELP X5 IN ACTION: RoboHelp X5 is a giant leap forward
in Help authoring technology, featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author support, PDF and XML support and much more! http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrldemo
From a single set of Word documents, create online Help and printed
documentation with ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 7 Professional, a new yearly
subscription service offering free updates and upgrades, support, and more.
http://www.doctohelp.com

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Re: Drop term "user's guide"?
Next by Author: Re: To Space or not to Space
Previous by Thread: RE: RE: Usability: Serif and Sans-Serif font faces?
Next by Thread: How to submit new version release information to the Technical writer

[Top of Archive] | [Author Index (this month)] | [Thread Index (this month)]

What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:

Sponsored Ads