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Larger Chinese text spacing and size: effects on older users’ experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2018

Guanhua Hou Open the ORCID record for Guanhua Hou [Opens in a new window] ,
Hua Dong ,
Weining Ning  and
Lianghao Han
Guanhua Hou
Affiliation:
College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Hua Dong*
Affiliation:
College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Weining Ning
Affiliation:
College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Lianghao Han
Affiliation:
School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
*
*Corresponding author. Email: donghua@tongji.edu.cn
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Abstract

With declining vision ability, character spacing and size on smartphones designed for the general population are not accessible for older adults. This study aimed to explore how larger Chinese character spacing and size affect older adults’ user experience (UX). An orthogonal experiment was conducted. The optimal range of font size (FS), word spacing (WS) and line spacing (LS) were proposed utilising subjective evaluations to investigate the correlation of eye movement data with participants perceived UX. The results showed that improvement in different aspects of UX varied when FS, WS and LS increased. Overall, participants preferred larger FS, WS and LS, however, the larger FS, WS and LS values are more likely to cause errors and slower reading speed. These results suggest that the distinct combination of size and spacing depends on the motivation, needs and situation of older people when reading on a smartphone. These findings will help designers to provide better design for the older people.

Keywords

user experiencefont sizeword spacingline spacingcognitive load
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , February 2020 , pp. 389 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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