Effects of font size, display resolution and task type on reading Chinese fonts from mobile devices

The objective of this study was to investigate the impacts of font size, display resolution and task type on the readability of Chinese fonts on mobile devices. In the experiment, participants conducted text reading tasks and visual searching tasks. Both objective and subjective measures were used to determine the readability of Chinese fonts. Significant differences were found in participants' reading performance and preference for different font sizes and display resolutions. Subjective measures were found to be more sensitive than objective measures. Optimum font sizes that can provide good readability of Chinese characters for four different resolutions were elicited. Recommendations for enhancing readability of Chinese fonts on mobile devices were discussed.Relevance to industryThe results can be used in determining the optimal font sizes for presenting Chinese characters on mobile devices with different display resolutions.