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Educational Web site designers want to know how to make
screen text easily readable by their learners.
This
page presents a series of studies designed to let you
experience for yourself what text design features work best,
and then combine your own results with those of others to
give you some idea of the parameters that work for most
people.
This
on-going Web study is being carried out by Dr. Bob Hoffman
(Bob.Hoffman@sdsu.edu)
and his students in the Department of Educational Technology
at San Diego State University.
It
is designed to be a learning tool for graduate instructional
designers, and results may be published in an academic
journal.
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Here are several short experiments you can do to learn about
designing body text for the Web:
- Type
Alignment & Case
Flush left, flush right, or center? Initial caps or
all caps? Which read faster?
- Type
Font
Of the most common type families or "styles" for the Web,
which are most -- and least -- "readable?" Here are two
experiments -- one subjective and one objective -- to
help you settle that question for yourself:
- Contrast
Black on white? White on gray? Gray on black? What
contrasting color combinations are more readable?
- Line
length (Coming soon)
Can lines of text be too long -- or too short -- to read
easily?
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