Reading vertical text from a computer screen
Jari Laarni, Jaana Simola, Ilpo Kojo, Risto Näsänen · Behaviour and Information Technology · 2004
In Western languages, text is traditionally presented in horizontal lines. However, reading of vertically arranged text might be more efficient because of the elimination of horizontal eye movements. We investigated the effect of vertical arrangement upon reading text presented on a computer screen. Even though vertically aligned text was read at a slower rate than horizontally aligned text, the difference was smaller than in previous studies. Analysis of eye-movement data revealed that there were no differences in fixation numbers and numbers of regressions between vertical formats and the standard-text format. But fixation durations were shorter for the standard-text format than for the vertical formats. Taken together, the results indicate that reading vertically presented text from a display device may be nearly as efficient as reading normal horizontal text. Therefore, the fact that text is normally vertically arranged in small-screen devices is not a usability problem.