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The effect of font type on character legibility for different age groups

  • Yunqian Zhao*
  • , Li Ding
  • , Linghua Ran
  • , Yan Li
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • Beihang University
  • China National Institute of Standardization

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

The readability of 8 popular English fonts and 9 Chinese font types were studied in this study. The reaction time (RT/ms) and the legibility correctness (RC/%) were recorded in the experiment while the information transmission rate (ITR for short) were calculated from RT and RC. Two aged groups of subjects participated in the experiment, and it was found that the font recognition task performance of the youth group was better than that of the middle aged group. The legibility of sans serif English font was better than the serifs. However, the effect of sans serif fonts could not be found with the Chinese characters. At last, bold art font was the most difficult for reading and should be avoided for important information display interfaces. The results of our study could give some suggestions to the design of human machine interfaces.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAdvances in Ergonomics in Design - Proceedings of the AHFE 2017 International Conference on Ergonomics in Design, 2017
EditorsFrancisco Rebelo, Marcelo Soares
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages199-210
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783319605814
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
EventAHFE 2017 International Conference on Ergonomics in Design, 2017 - Los Angeles, United States
Duration: 17 Jul 201721 Jul 2017

Publication series

NameAdvances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
Volume588
ISSN (Print)2194-5357

Conference

ConferenceAHFE 2017 International Conference on Ergonomics in Design, 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLos Angeles
Period17/07/1721/07/17

Keywords

  • Age
  • Chinese character legibility
  • English font legibility
  • Font
  • Sans serif
  • Serif

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