Communicating emotion with animated text

Abstract

Traditionally, typographers and designers have relied on variations in the shape and form of letters and text to enhance textual meaning. It is hypothesized that animated text may be used to recreate a broader range of paralinguistic meaning and emotion than is possible with the use of static text alone. This pilot study was conducted to provide conceptual validation for the hypothesis that animated text can communicate certain emotions such as anger, sadness, happiness and fear. Animations were subjected to pre-testing and refined as needed. Subjects were tested for their understanding of the emotional content of a sample set of animated sentences. There was strong support for the animations created to measure ‘sadness’ and ‘happiness’. Findings also indicated that certain textual motions are associated with the intensity of certain emotions.