The Assessment of the National Fonts’ Quality Using the Short Exposure Technique

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study and evaluate 13 national fonts by using empirical methods, which can be assessed the quality of fonts. A total of 403 participants were randomly selected using a multi-stage sampling technique. The age ranged between 18-­22. The research tools were questionnaires, and SWF files used for flashing letters on the computer screen to test the visibility of characters. Three experts examined both tools including IOC and interviews. Next, the tools were tested by using the internal consistency method with 20 samples. The descriptive statistical analysis was used for the 5-point Likert scaling questionnaires to compare the mean score and the standard deviation. In the short exposure test, the one-way analysis of variance was used. Overall, the results could not reject the hypothesis that font differences do not affect the accuracy of character identification. This conclusion supported the theory of familiarity, which explains how humans can recognize familiar characters even though letterforms are complex. From the results, it was found that different styles of fonts, printing, or handwriting, did not affect the correction rates of letter identification in general. Therefore, the data suggested that the familiarity with typeface styles may be an essential factor in the letter recognition.