Project R-1325

Macrotypography in a digital environment. Research to readability on screens for persons with restricted digital literacy. (Research)

The first question that needs to be answered is how a website is read and where it differs from reading printed text. Research of Nielsen (1997) shows that people read web pages in a different way than reading pages on paper. People scan the pages rather than reading them, so the displayed text should be 'web-friendly' with short phrases and useful links (Nielsen, 1997). In particular I want to examine how reading (skimming, scanning, scrolling, ...) a web page on a screen, in relation to the layout (the use of horizontal and vertical space) and the structure of hypertext, can be optimized for persons with a limited digital literacy. This concerns a study of factors on ' macro level ' that are of interest to the recordable nature of a text. The practical part of this study will consist of the design of different screen layouts, based on different parameters, tested on the macro level. These parameters are: the typesetting, the line length and spacing in proportion to the body size, the color contrast,the line contrast, the color within the lines and dimension and structure of the hypertext. An important aspect that I do not want to overlook, is the 'emotional motives┌ of the recipients. All too often there is the assumption that people read as machines and in this respect, my research also differs from that of my predecessors. Reading is not independent of subjective and emotional responses, preferences and aversions can┌t be avoided.

01 October 2008 - 30 September 2010