Impact of Screen Aspect Ratio on Reading Electronic Material

Abstract

The major question addressed in this paper is influence of different screen aspect ratios on reading electronic material. In order to examine differences, we performed a research that included two of most popular aspect ratios: 4: 3 and 16:9. Both aspect ratios were represented in desktop and handheld variant. The research referred to engineering students as readers. Engineering students were very interesting population for this research due to the fact that they spend most of their time reading electronic materials, during their education. Logically, it is necessary to measure how effective this way of reading educational material is. The general hypothesis of this study was that there is difference in usage of electronic reading material on screens with different aspect ratios, and that the current hype for widescreen displays is unjustified when it comes to reading electronic material. Reading time, amount of interactions and knowledge test scores were used as measures in experiment. Our results speak in favor of the hypothesis and suggest why proposed screen aspect ratio is the most suitable for reading electronic materials.