Effect of font size, italics, and colour count on web usability

Sanjiv K. Bhatia, Ashok Samal, Nithin Rajan, Marc T. Kiviniemi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Web usability measures the ease of use of a website. This study attempts to find the effect of three factors – font size, italics, and colour count – on web usability. The study was performed using a set of tasks and developing a survey questionnaire. We performed the study using a set of human subjects, selected from the undergraduate students taking courses in psychology. The data computed from the tasks and survey questionnaire were statistically analysed to find if there was any effect of font size, italics, and colour count on the three web usability dimensions. We found that for the student population considered, there was no significant effect of font size on usability. However, the manipulation of italics and colour count did influence some aspects of usability. The subjects performed better for pages with no italics and high italics compared to moderate italics. The subjects rated the pages that contained only one colour higher than the web pages with four or six colours. This research will help web developers better understand the effect of font size, italics, and colour count on web usability in general, and for young adults, in particular.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)156-179
Number of pages24
JournalInternational Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics
Volume2
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011

Keywords

  • colour selection
  • font selection
  • user interfaces
  • web factors
  • web usability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Science Applications

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