Font Sizes and Colour Background of Typography - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal of “The Impact of font sizes, colour background of typography on readability of people with sight problem and colour blindness”. Name of the Student: Professor: Date of Submission: Thesis: The readability of the people with vision impairment is influenced by changing the pattern of the elements such as fonts and colour, hence the chances of improving the readability for people with vision problems gets increased Introduction: “Typography is the balance and interplay of letterforms on the page” .Web StyleGuide. [2nd Ed. 2004]. The role of typography is very effective both as a visual aid and as a verbal communication tool. If the typography does not meet the requirement, the readability gets affected. Typography determines the text format to create readability and receive coherence in meaning while reading with the aim of making the text understandable to all. The text type differs according to the type and effectiveness of the content it carries such as an educational article, religious article or book, scientific or spiritual text etc. Readability decides the success of a typographical work. Literature Review: Readability is acquired with the help of recognising and identifying the individual units or letters in a text, and it comprises of essential elements such as spacing between letters, word spacing, shape and size of the letters, colour of the letters etc. In recent years, typography has been implemented in Newspapers, magazines and other works, which covers the major events of daily life. The newspapers and magazines follow a stereotype of pattern in typography by printing the headlines in larger fonts and other matters following the normal font size. When considering type, the main accessibility issues are size and colour. These attributes come into play for users who have vision disabilities such as low vision or colour blindness. In the case of texts found in websites, people do not have options to change the type size and increase the chances of readability. The case becomes worse for those with vision impairment. The part played by contrast, type size, lay out of the pages colour etc have a deep impact over the readability of the people. With the additional set of scalable text the readers with difficulties in readability. Influence of Font Size on paper and online play a very important role in determining the readability of the text. There are some general research results showing the effect of changes in readability due to changes in font sizes Tinker [1963] observed that the influence of font size and legibility affect the readability in terms of speed in reading and understanding the text. He took tow conditions to prove his research, a material of text types in 10-point size Roman lower case and the other set in 8 point size in italics. The results shown were participants who read 10-size font reflected speed and memory, where as those who took reading 8-size font remained comparatively slow. [Tinker, 1963]. Kitchel, [2002] observed “Both readers with low vision and readers with normal vision read faster and with better comprehension with a monospaced font rather than a variable font. Improvement in the low vision group was greater, however, than in the group with normal vision”. Persons with low vision fail to identify the indent items as a result they encounter trouble in reading the words in columns. In a focus group, discussion adults with low vision impairment agreed to read provided “the text must appear without background graphics or other media which might make letters and characters difficult to discern” Kitchel, [2002]. The physical size of a letter has an effective influence in determining the readability of the text. In the case of WebPages, the contributing factors such as resolution of the monitor, website’s default text size, and glyph. Given below is the specifications used by the Microsoft typography. These specifications consist of the mostly preferred font sizes, which have been used by Microsoft for a very long time. HTML specifications  FONT SIZE=n  Point Size  Heading Hn 0 6   1 8 H6 2 10 H5 3 (default) 12 H4 4 14 H3 5 18 H2 6 24 H1 7 36   Table 1. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/designer/face3.htm Another important element which has to considered in typography is selection of color and contrast for letters. As the color and contrast presented in a typography material has many things to help with readability. In fact literature says that people having vision problems and color deficiencies in vision face lot of difficulties in reading the letters. “More than 8% of males and less than 1% of females have some kind of color perception deficiency. The most common color deficiencies are:   “Protanpopia: Causes a person to confuse red and orange with yellow and green Dueteropia: Inability to distinguish between gray and purple. Trianopia: Confusion of green and blue and gray with violet.” http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/coursenotes/IS732/book/chapters/Is12col02.htm#12.2.1. [2007] The colors play a challenging role in benefiting as well as creating problems in readability and vision. The benefits of color are that Colors could be used to emphasize target, helps in identifying real things, to distinguish or to separate areas, categorising, to provide information in a coding form etc. While the disadvantages are “Distract the user when inadequately used. Dependent on viewing and stimulus conditions Be ineffective for color deficient individuals. Result in information overload Unintentionally conflict with cultural conventions Cause unintended visual effects and discomfort” says web.njit.edu, [2007] The website called 456 Bereast .com observes the effect of color an background on readability by the following test, they say “When reversing colour out, eg white text on black, make sure you increase the leading, tracking and decrease your font-weight. This applies to all widths of Measure. White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so the letterforms need to be wider apart, lighter in weight and have more space between the lines” 456 Bereast.com [2006]. Typography needs more attention in case of designing a webpage. Website designers choose inverted colour patterns in terms of light colour letters in a dark background. However, there seems to be high contrast in some pages in web, which results in difficulty in reading by people with low vision problem. Some of the WebPages might appear attractive with bright color background, but the same might affect the eyes if the user has to work continuously in front of the computer Given below are some of the features of typography, which would help in increasing the readability of web pages by the people with vision impairment. “Body copy should be set in a simple, legible, not-too-small typeface within HTML. Typeface choices should be consistent with the ambiance of a site. Use only two or three different typefaces on a page. Often, it’s best to choose two very different fonts that contrast sharply, rather than two or more fonts that are very similar. Typography characteristics that can create emphasis include size, weight, color, form, texture, direction, rhythm and spacing, and embellishment. In all cases, we should use restraint, with meaning attached” [Typography 2006]. Visual Impairment is a major problem, as there seems to be lot of chances for people to develop difficulty in reading. However, it has to be understood that typography methods could be revised for people with partial vision impairment, not for people with complete vision impairment or blindness. To conduct a research people with a low vision or partial vision should be selected as samples. While considering the research path for web pages, it would be easier than the one that would be conducted on a printed document or paper. Online has the provision of a screen so that the people can identify the changes easily and spontaneity is available. Technical difficulty might appear in the case of paper document where as it is not there in the case of web pages. Conducting a testing process with the help of a computer appears to be very helpful and reliable. Arditi, 2005 points out some of the problems connected with impairment in vision, which causes difficulty in readability. They are Reducing the amount of light that enters the eye Blurring the retinal image Damaging the central portion of the retina best suited to fro reading” There are some people who develop color blindness or less accessibility to certain colors. In such a condition, their readability gets affected a lot. People with color deficiency have “more difficulty to discriminate all three dimensions of color- hue, value and chroma” Gabriel-Petit [2007] the chances of distinguishing colors by people with color deficiencies increases if a dichromatic color scheme is followed. The different types of shades or hues presented in dichromatic color combinations will provide contrast which in turn will help the people with color blindness to give scope for readability. To improve accessibility to people with color deficiency the following steps are suggested by Gabriel-Petit [2007] for designing WebPages. Some of them are “Maximize contrasts in hue, value and chroma Use dichromatic color schemes Use analogous color schemes Limit color schemes to only three to four hues. Ensure that there is sufficient value contrast between all the hues in a color scheme. Never use hues that have similar values next to one another Combine highly contrasting values of either reds, oranges, and yellows, or magentas, violets, and blues in a color scheme. Avoid the use of yellow-greens and greens with color schemes comprising reds, oranges, and yellows” etc. Gabriel-Petit [2007]. “Partial sight, aging, and congenital deficits all produce changes in perception that reduce the visual effectiveness of certain color combinations” observes Arditi, [2005]. Some of the guidelines that help in improving legibility choices for all types of readers are revising the letters and typography in the areas of Contrast, type color, point size, leading, font family, font style, letter spacing, margins, paper finish, and distinctiveness. “Foreground and background colors are often sometimes unwisely chosen”.Typography and Appearance [2006], this affects the readability in many ways, so along with the above guidelines the background and foreground color selection have to be considered to bring out a better type face for people with vision impairment to have better readability. Methodology: This research is going to be purely a quantitive research. As the problem in readability has been running in the present society. In addition, the issue of disability among people with impairment is yet another existing one in the society. Disability in reading arises from those people who have vision problems such as unclear sight and color blindness. The aspect of typography has been considered as quiet effective if relevant changes could be brought out to make the type easy to read and understand by all sorts of people. The research involves various steps such as the following: 1. Collecting data regarding the growth of typography in the modern world 2. Collecting data regarding the designing of normal pages and web pages 3. Collecting data regarding the features of different fonts and colors used in typography. 4. Comparing the readability of people with good or normal vision with that of people with low vision. 5. Comparing the readability of people by varying the commonly used font size both in paper and WebPages 6. Comparing the readability of people by varying the color both in paper and WebPages 7. Comparing the readability of people by changing the background of the page through adjusting the contrast both in paper documents and in WebPages. 8. Questionnaires for people with vision impairments a. to find out which type of font sizes would be preferred by them b. To find out which type of color should be chosen for letters c. to find out which kind of background should be given for pages d. does brightness affect their readability. Samples for research: 1. People with normal vision 2. People with partial vision. 3. People with color blindness. Variables considered for the research: 1. Different types of fonts in different sizes 2. Different types of color background. 3. Type faces in printed matter and web pages. 4. Layouts in different formats. 5. Web pages Results and Conclusion: By testing the readability of both types of people with the help of a focus group discussion, the chances of improving the readability could be improved. Tests should be conducted in terms of allowing the people to read different types of texts in different font sizes, and colors etc. The one type size that receives the highest readability percentage could be preferred for people with vision problem. In order to receive the most possible readability by people having color blindness the choices of colors in letters and background should be considered based on checking the readability of the people with the help of trying out different color backgrounds. In such a case, a computer facility would help in many ways to bring out an instantaneous result. References: American Printing House for the Blind. Online available from http://education.umn.edu/nceo/Presentations/LPreading.ppt. Arditi, Aries.Ph.D “Effective Color Contrast. Designing for People with Partial Sight and Color Deficiencies”. 2005. online available from http://www.lighthouse.org/print_leg.htm Bringhurst, Robert. “The Elements of Typographic Style”. [2nd Ed] 2002. Hartley marks Publishers. Canada. Color, Signs, Typography and Form. Online available from http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/coursenotes/IS732/book/chapters/Is12col02.htm#12.2.2.%20Type Gabriel- Petit, Pabini. “Ensuring Accessibility for People with Color-Deficient Vision”. February 5th 2007. online available from http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000164.php Kirkpatrick,F. Mary Ann. & Mohler, Cherri. P. “Using the readability assessment instrument to evaluate patient medication leaflets”. Drug Infromation Journal, Vol. 33, pp. 557-563, 1999. Drug Information Association Inc. U.S.A. online available from http://www.diahome.org/content/abstract/1999/dij1277.pdf Kitchel, Elaine. M.Ed. “Reading, Typography and Low Vision A Few Guidelines for Making Large Print Documents and Tests More Accessible”. Information from the “Light text on dark background vs. readability”. August 21st online available from http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200608/light_text_on_dark_background_vs_readability/#comment129 The Relationship between font size and physical type size . online available from http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/designer/face3.htm Tinker, M.A. 1963 “Legibility offprint”. Ames:Iowa State University Press Typography decisions for a webpage .Typography Chapter 7. http://www.cs.niu.edu/~mcintire/webbook/Typography/Typography.doc Typography and appearance online available from http://joeclark.org/access/captioning/bpoc/typography.html Read More