The influence of font type and line length on visual search and information retrieval in web pages

Most web sites are heavily text-based. Previous research has indicated that the way in which this text is presented may have a significant impact on usability. This paper reports findings from two experiments that explored the influence of font type and line length on a range of performance and subjective measures. Experiment 1 used a visual search task and Experiment 2 examined information retrieval. Overall, there was little impact of font on task performance, although the effect of line length was significant, with longer line lengths facilitating better scanning (Experiment 1) and shorter line lengths leading to better subjective outcomes (Experiments 1 and 2). Implications of these results for the design of web pages are discussed and recommendations given.