The Relative Suitability of Four Dot--Matrix Sizes for Text Presentation on Color Television Screens

Characters with four dot--matrix sizes (5 x 7, 7 x 9, 9 x 13, and 11 x 15) were tested as to their suitability for the presentation of characters on standard home color television sets. Subjects performed five different tasks and rated the various character sizes. Their qualitative performance for all tasks was the same with each of the different character sizes; the amount of time necessary to complete the tasks, however, varied up to more than 20%. In all tasks, the worst performance was obtained with the smallest character size. Since the 9- x -13 character size was rated significantly better than the smaller character sizes, we recommend that this size be used for text display on color television screens.