Building a suitable testing-platform to measure impact of typographic effects on web pages

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to create a testing-platform that mea- sures the impact of typographic effects on web pages. This study chose to focus on highlighted text (text with high contrast background- color) as a typographic tool. The platform is a website, consisting of three (3) pages; (1) the first gathers test user information; (2) the sec- ond (subject-section) records time read and applies an authentication function; (3) the final page provides a multiple-choice questionnaire that records time tested, test score with same authentication method as page two. To test the platform, forty-nine participants were gathered, twenty-five participants (named Group Highlight Text) performed the test with highlight effects turned on and visible in page two (2), the remaining twenty-four (named Group Regular Text) read same page with no effects toggled or visible. Both groups were tested on page three (3) with six questions. The testing-platform fulfilled all expected requirements, with some sections requiring further development. The participation test data revealed some interesting results that could be analyzed further with assistance from social science research. In con- clusion, the test platform successfully recorded viable data that could be used in many fields, but will need additional technical work before being adopted in real-world applications. Further study could be im- plemented in collaboration with researchers from the social sciences to analyze the effects of different typographic effects. Additionally, cre- ate platforms to extract, organize and visualize gathered data would be advantageous.