Readability And Legibility In Small Form Factor Devices

Readability and legibility of news content on mobile devices
DTV Training School
Lisbon, 25th november 2009
Pedro Sigaud Sellos

READABILITY
“read a ble adj.1.pleasant and interesting to read2. legible”
“Readable adj.1. Intelligible, comprehensible, understandable, easy to understand, easily understood, plain2.Entertaining, easy to read, enjoyable, pleasurable, absorbing, interesting, engaging, stimulating, worthwhile”
FOCUS ON TEXT COMPLEXITY AND LEVEL OF COMPREHENSION
LEGIBILITY
“leg i bleadj. (of print and handwriting) clear enough to be deciphered, readable”
“Legibleadj. Readable, decipherable, clear, understandable, plain, distinct”
FOCUS ON THE VISUAL ASPECT OF TEXT PRESENTATION
(Oxford American Dictionary; The Oxford Thesaurus)

“Forget the words, enjoy the form”BEAUMONT, Michael ; Tipo & Color
Information is being delivered on smaller screens (smartphones, PDAs, ebooks)
The text aspect is in a process of imaging (the newspaper seen as “visual text”)

Variables

New variables
Screen size
CFF (critical flicker fusion) / Visual fatigue
Luminosity/ Contrast
Screen material (LCD, e-ink, etc)
Ease of use
Portability
Device aesthetics

Methodology
Bibliographic material about readability, legibility, editorial and news design, tipography, mobile culture and mobile technology
Articles and papers about conducted experiments with small form factor devices
Application of Flesch Reading Ease formula (for measuring readability mathematically)
Application of Cloze Procedure (experiment for measuring readability)
Conduction of survey for comparing the levels of legibility between the printed and the mobile versions (reading performance: reading out; most visually attractive newspaper)
In depth interviews with communication entrepeneurs and heavy users of portable devices

Samples
Brazilian newspapers that also offer mobile content
[WAP, SMS, .mobi, iphone, Blackberry, Kindle]
[.mobi, iphone, WAP, SMS]

Digitally speaking, we still adopt the 19thcentury style
Libération Digital version
Libération printed version

For a new support, a different content
Main menu redesign proposal by Italian graphic designer Fedra Malara

Thank you!
pedrosellos@gmail.com

Readability And Legibility In Small Form Factor Devices

by Pedro Sigaud

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