Abstract
The American National Standard for Human Factors Engineering of Visual Display Workstations specifies that character height-to-width ratios be within the range of 1:0.7 to 1:0.9. The empirical literature, however, fails to provide unequivocal support for that requirement. In designing CRT displays there is a complex interaction among several parameters, including character aspect ratio and character height. The present study compared a font with a character aspect ratio within the range allowed by ANSI/HFS 100–1988 to a font with a character aspect ratio outside that range. Using three different visually-intensive tasks, no real performance differences between the two fonts were observed. The study demonstrated that meeting individual design specifications, such as those provided in ANSI/HFS 100–1988, does not necessarily produce the most legible character set. It is argued that a performance-based compliance procedure may allow more flexibility in the design of visual display workstations.
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