Format effects of Traditional Chinese character size and font style on reading performance when using smartphones

Previous studies which explored the effects of typographic variables on Chinese text reading on small devices fixed the viewing distance from eyes to the screens. Hence, their results might not be generalized to the typographic design of Chinese texts on small devices. Therefore, the article tried to investigate the effects of Traditional Chinese character size and font style on reading performance when subjects used 5.5-inch smartphones without limiting their viewing distances. The experiment a 3(character size) × 3(typeface) completely randomized replicate design. Each design combination was tested twice. Each subject read only one of the experimental runs to perform reading comprehension with following multiple-choice tests. The reading time was a performance measure. Analysis of covariance was employed to analyze the data. Unlike previous studies, the results found that the font size did not significantly affect reading performance because subjects could adjust their viewing distance freely in real situations, resulting the legibility of various character sizes did not significantly differ. In addition, the font style effect was significant. The results showed that readers had better reading performance when the texts were written with the Kai style when using smartphones. It seemed to indicate that the serifs fonts might be a good element to recognize a Chinese character easily. Finally, the results also implied that the scrolling effect did not affect reading time significantly.