Do You Have Trouble Reading Text Off The Monitor? 

by Grandpa Chuck

The Themestream Editors in article wrote, "If you haven't figured it out, people are reading on the net. In fact, you've just joined them. But how far will you read? Can I take you to the next paragraph? Or will you tire of this early and click away?"

The article went onto add, "A staff at the Stanford/Poynter Institute recently posted the Eyetrack2000 results. And what did the researchers track during this laborious survey of 67 people? These patient people measured and marked the precise movements of 134 eyeballs while they read off the Internet. The study found that the average user is getting his or her news online. The Internet for most of these subjects is replacing the print newspaper. More than that, readers are getting their fix of the things that interest them the most from the Internet!"

"Reading from computer screens is about 25% slower than reading from paper. Even users who don't know this human factors research usually say that they feel unpleasant when reading online text. As a result, people don't want to read a lot of text from computer screens.

The screen readability problem will be solved in the future, since screens with 300 dpi resolution have been invented and have been found to have as good readability as paper. High-resolution screens are currently too expensive (high-end monitors in commercial use have about 110 dpi), but will be available in a few years and common ten years from now."

The next time you are looking to buy a computer look for a larger screen with a high resolution. It will be worth the extra money if you spend a lot of time on the Internet.

Also, during the next visit to the eye doctor ask about glasses just for using while you are on the computer. Anyone with bifocals knows the problems that you have when reading off a computer screen. A pair of glasses just for the computer really can make your time online more enjoyable.