Compreensibilidade de textos contínuos em interfaces gráficas.

Abstract

With the mass reading on the computer screen, it is necessary to avoid physical and mental tiredeness as well as interferences in the process of acquiring information. To contribute towards the comprehensibility of didactical texts available through the internet it is necessary to care for graphical aspects related to the presentation of the elements on the screen. The poor presentation of theses elements can cause legibility defficiencies impairing the aprehension and memorisation of the information on display. This work presents the investigation of two of these aspects: line spacing and two specific font types: Verdana and Georgia. The investigation was conducted as an experiment combined with a survey on readears opinion on the text readability. As a result of this investigation it is proposed a set of guidelines for text design in which are based on the result of this research whereas others originate from a literature survey. The guidelines cover graphical aspects such as font size, font type, line lenght, line spacing, text alignment and color. The recommendations apply to any continuous text, with 600 words or above, displayed in Georgia or Verdana font types, on a CRT monitor in the Web, for knowledge acquisition purpuses such as distant learning, on-line magazines, on line books, etc. The guidelines are directed to non-expert designers when deciding on the presentation of continuous text to be presented on the Web, in particular for the purpose of knowledge acquisition such as didactical, and information retrieval in general. The work’s contribution was to experimentally suport the recommendations after investigating the relationship between the two aspects of typographical configuration of text with the ease of reading, in the specific context of acquisition on the web, supported by elearning plataforms. Similar experimental results were not found in the literature review.