Readability examples

Which of the following four paragraphs is the most comfortable to read from the screen?

How far from the screen were you? Now imagine you are with a friend looking at a web page on your laptop, or looking at a kiosk application. Take up a position compatible with this and read the paragraphs again.

What difference does distance make to your motivation?

What difference does distance make to your understanding?

The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software. You need to forget the notion that specialism is more important than all-round ability, because the skills you need to master when making multimedia are very broad. They will include project management and cost control, computer system architecture and logic, video and audio editing, text and image manipulation ... at least. Add to this the need to be able to integrate the disparate elements in a meaningful and appropriate way.

The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software. You need to forget the notion that specialism is more important than all-round ability, because the skills you need to master when making multimedia are very broad.

The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types.

Multimedia
The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

Multimedia

The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

Multimedia
The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

Multimedia

The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

Multimedia
The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

Multimedia
The disciplines of multimedia are as diverse as the media types. Familiarity and even expertise is required in the facets of television and radio production as well as a facility with computer software.

• Which block caught your attention first?
• Which did you read first?
• Which did you find easiest to read?
• What grabbed your attention most: bolding, size, colour or space? (The last two examples used colour, but that might not show with certain browsers.)
• Did your cultural preference for reading over-ride the other factors so that you read the blocks in a particular sequence?
• Did you skim or scan the blocks first - appraising them before selecting one to read in detail?

The more aware you are of your own reading preferences, the more empathetic you'll become to layout for users of your applications.