This open access book provides a detailed and up-to-date account of the relevant literature on the legibility of different kinds of typefaces, which goes back over 140 years in the case of reading from paper and more than 50 years in the case of reading from screens. It describes the origins of serif and sans serif styles in ancient inscriptions, their adoption in modern printing techniques, and their legibility in different situations and in different populations of readers. It also examines recent research on the legibility of serif and sans serif typefaces when used with internet browsers, smartphones and other hand-held devices. The book investigates the difference in the legibility of serif typefaces and sans serif typefaces when they are used to produce printed material or when they are used to present material on computer monitors or other screens and it explores the differences in readers’ preferences among typefaces.
The book’s main focus is on the psychology of reading, but there are clear implications for education and publishing. Indeed, the book can be read with benefit by anyone concerned with communicating with others through written text, whether it is printed on paper or displayed on computer screens.
John T. E. Richardson is emeritus professor in student learning at the UK Open University. He taught and researched in psychology at Brunel University from 1975 to 2001, when he moved to the Open University to take up a new chair in student learning and assessment in the Institute of Educational Technology. His main research interests were concerned with the relationship between students’ perceptions of their courses of study in higher education and the approaches to studying that they adopt on those courses. He was also responsible for institutional research on the evaluation of both courses and programmes of study at the Open University. In 2002-2003, he contributed to the report of the Student Feedback Project Steering Group to the Higher Education Funding Council for England on Collecting and Using Student Feedback on Quality and Standards of Learning and Teaching in HE, and in 2003-2005 he was part of a team based at the Open University that carried out a pilot study for the Funding Council towards the National Student Survey. He was a co-director of a project on the social and organisational mediation of university learning funded under Phase III of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme from 2004 to 2008. In 2008, he completed a literature review on the role of ethnicity and gender as predictors of degree attainment as part of the HEA/ECU Ethnicity, Gender and Degree Attainment Project and was a member of the team that produced a report for the Funding Council on league tables and their impact on higher education institutions. He retired from the Open University in July 2017.
