What is the effect of font on howlong it takes someone to read a paragraph?

A science report by Hayden Lewis-Gosch

I predict that that more basic fonts like Cambria will be the easiestto read because of there simplicity. This probably means that it willtake less time for people to read paragraphs written in fonts like this.I also think that fancy fonts like Seogoe print may take longerfor someone to read because the font is more complicated.

Step one: Write out a paragraph.Step two: Choose the fonts you want to use. (I will be usingthree fancy/complex fonts, and three simplistic/basic fonts.)Step three: Make copies of the paragraph in each font.Step four: Get test subjects. (I will be using 18 people formy test. Three people will read the paragraph in each font.)Step five: Record the time it takes each person to read his/herassigned paragraph.Step six: Collect data and make data table.Step seven: Make science fair presentation. (This PowerPointyou’re looking at now.)

Time it takes test subject to read paragraph. (Seconds)

Font size, Test subjects used throughout testing, Paragraphused in testing, and Unit of time used in collecting test data.

Fonts Person 1 Person 2 Person 3 Average

Monotype Corsiva 37.94 Sec. 35.31 Sec. 34.97 Sec. 36.07 Sec.

Blackadder ITC 38.96 Sec. 31.72 Sec. 37.25 Sec. 35.97 Sec.

Chiller 31.12 Sec. 30.75 Sec. 39.69 Sec. 33.95 Sec.

Arial Black 32.09 Sec. 30.00 Sec. 36.75 Sec. 32.92 Sec.

Cambria 30.37 Sec. 23.22 Sec. 34.29 Sec. 29.29 Sec.

Microsoft Sans Serif

35.00 Sec. 29.50 Sec. 37.66 Sec. 34.05 Sec.

Note: Three different people did each font. It wasn’t the same three people for all the fonts.

The font you use in a paragraph has no effect on how long it takes someone to read that paragraph.

The data shows that there is almost no difference between the fancy fonts and the basic fonts. The only big difference for average time for a font was for the font “Cambria” where theperson in trial two read the paragraph really fast for some reason. The average time for all thefancy fonts is 35.33* seconds, and the average time for all the basic fonts is 32.08*. The onlyReason that I think that there is a difference is just the thing with the trial two on the font “Cambria,” where the person just read really fast for some reason. If that hadn’t happened, I thinkthat there would be almost no difference between the fancy and basic fonts.

Since I know that there is almost no difference between the average time of the fancy and basic fonts, and I know that I did use different fonts, so there was a difference,this means that the font you use in a paragraph has no effect on how long it take someone to read that paragraph.

*Total average of fancy and basic fonts comes from all the averagesof fonts in that category.

Special thanks to: Elias Bailey, Amelia Lewis, Henry Adamson,Helen Liska, Henry Silverstein, Aidan Mirick, Alaina Hurley,Katherine Rea, Grey Colleran, Zara Park, Anna Garrison,Jedi Cho, Grace Nelson, Sasha Segal, Iris Aukema-Gray,Yura Campbell, Fiona Dark, and Maxwell Burke!