http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
analysis of digital typography and page layout for headlines in electronic newspapers
xviii, 215 leaves : illustrations ; 28 cm.
As the use of computers for viewing digital information such as electronic newspapers and other types of data sources increases, the legibility of information displayed on computer screens becomes important with respect to the speed of information retrieval and acquisition by the user. Advances in hardware and software technologies increase the legibility of digital information through improved display devices and digital typography. Presentation layouts and typographic styles affect the computer users' ability to acquire information quickly. This research investigates a subset of the digital typography and page layout issues related to the task of skimming information displayed on a computer screen. The main focus of this research is on the presentation of newspaper headlines and how different typographic styles and layouts affect the speed of acquisition of information in the skimming task of reading headlines. Relevant guidelines for print media and electronic media information are presented to provide a high-level view of layout design metrics. Previous research into the issues associated with legibility and layout design also is presented. The research described in this dissertation consisted of four phases of work. The first phase was an experiment investigating the effects of typeface, point size, screen resolution, and monitor size on legibility of electronic newspaper headlines. The second phase was an experiment investigating the effects of typeface, point size, screen resolution, and layout style on the acquisition time of electronic newspaper headlines. The third phase was an investigation into the different guidelines proposed for print and electronic information presentation. The fourth phase of this research was the development of a prototype system based on the guidelines and experimental results. The results of the experiments conducted for this research indicate larger point sizes are better for the skimming task associated with locating information in a newspaper headline. Additionally, the newspaper layout produced smaller mean times when searching for a particular category of headline than the list layout. Subjective rankings of typefaces and point sizes showed the most preferred point size was 24-points and the most preferred typeface was Book Antiqua. The least preferred point size was 14-points for all typefaces used in this study.
Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-166).