A constant rise in technology and the expansion of the internet are two main factors which contributed to the decline of the use of printed media and a continuously larger circle of internet readers. This has brought the evolution of high resolution displays, especially liquid crystal displays (LCD) which are among the most used ones. Despite high resolutions there are still problems in legibility of fonts. Many fonts are perfectly readable in print, but more difficult to read on screens. For a better legibility, the fonts georgia and verdana have been designed.
There are a lot of factors which contribute to the legibility of fonts, such as the shape and size of the font, spacing, line length and, last but not least, also contrast and color. In order to achieve good legibility, not only the color of the font, but also the color of the background, needs to be carefully selected.
In this research, it has been compared which color combinations of the baroque Georgia font have good or bad legibility and which color combinations of the linear Verdana font have good or bad legibility on an LCD screen. It was discovered that the selection of a particular color combination and contrast greatly effects the speed of reading and the legibility. Less contrasting color combinations of text and background are read more slowly than more contrasting ones. The fastest reading has been achieved with a negative color combination, that is brighter text on a black background. The results have also shown that Georgia font is easier and faster to read than Verdana font.
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