Learning is Just a Click Away but Font Size Matters…

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Learning is just a click away but font size matters…

There are variety of online tools and educational platforms providing content through a computer screen. Visual design elements provide the content embedded in colors, different fonts and scheme, all those can effect learners’ performance in recalling information.  Once the text is well organized in terms of paragraph style, size of font, text line spacing, and word length, the readers’ performance in ability to recall information referring to readability (Hojjati & Muniandy, 2014). Hence, computer based instructions such as online courses or tutorials are crucial to engage learners effectively and to contribute one’s meaningful learning. In addition, it is indisputable that students’ screen time is getting higher with the generation of new apps and media tools day by day as well as making them socially distant from others and isolating them from face to face environments. Here is the reason why texts are important in terms of conveying messages and enhancing reading speed, comprehension and retention referring to the multimedia principles by Mayer (2001).

While designing visuals as instructional designers or lesson planners, all we need to consider that much neglected element called “typography” that has a huge impact on learners’ perceptions through the channels of multimedia. There are some research implemented in the field of educational technology based on the effects of the font types on screen display and students’ reading performance. The results of the study conducted on 30 postgraduate students about readability test on computer screen indicated that “Verdana and san serif fonts” are good choices a selection for font types in displaying long text on screen whereas there are some studies supporting that there is no differences regarding to readability (Josephson, 2008; Wilson, 2001). On the other hand, Times New Roman as designed for print media and we still use this font type in numerous print media such as books and documents (Harris, 1996). Hence, selecting suitable typographic features for the learners can have positive outcomes in terms of text performing and readability. Another stance, spacing has another factor affecting readability, and putting an extra space between sentences in long paragraphs might be helpful in reading by making it more legible.

Bear in mind that, we should reconsider all those important elements and learner characteristics while designing our materials or selecting the media sources. This might be a bottleneck analysis in message design but our short term memory has capacity to hold 7+/- chunks as Miller emphasized in 1950s and its retrieval depends on size of information held.  Hence, organizing elements on a text and visually connecting them with something else on the page (unity) and including visual cues (proximity) are highly beneficial for increasing students’ performance in learning from multimedia tools.

References
Mayer, R.E., Steinhoff, K., Bower, G., & Mars, R. (1995). A generative theory of textbook design: Using annotated illustrations to foster meaningful learning of science text. Educational Technology Research and Development, 43, 31

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