| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣藝術大學 === 視覺傳達設計學系 === 103 === The origin of words signifies the human civilizations. Words are a form of documenting information and transmitting visual symbols. Thanks to the advancement in printing technologies, it has seen more demands for stylish words stemming from people’s pursuit of aesthetics. For this reason, Mandarin character design (i.e. typography) has been developing comprehensively with multifaceted possibilities for developments and applications in modern times.
The present study aims to explore the differences in the interactiveness between “the participants’ backgrounds” and “Mandarin character design” based on their legibility reaction times. The design research methods were carried out in two phases. The first phase is content analysis. The samples were randomly chosen from the designed characters at an interschool exhibition of student designers. Through the encoding and definitions of these designed characters, seven word stroke designs were categorized as experimental groups: original stroke design (OSD), simplified stroke design (SSD), connected stroke design (CSD), partially-picturesque stroke design (PSD), graphic stroke design (GSD), picturesque design (PD), and restructured stroke design (RSD). Control groups were also used for decreasing the internal validity. Then, in order to confirm the usability of samples and establish the hypotheses, the researcher even required two word designers to encode and test the reliability and validity of these samples. The second phase is experimental method. Through priming effect, sixty participants from different backgrounds were randomly chosen to take a task of legibility reaction towards Mandarin character design. The task results were analyzed by 2-way ANOVA mixed design.
The research findings are as follows. First, the quickness and slowness of reaction times are not influenced by the participants’ different backgrounds. This indicates that participants from different fields/backgrounds can be used in later studies. Second, from the quickest reaction times to the slowest, it is shown in the control groups as OSD≒SSD＜PSD＜RSD＜CSD＜GSD＜PD. This demonstrates that in the control groups without experimental variables, the best legibility is on OSD and SSD, and on PD vice versa. Third, a legibility model of character design can be formulated from the present study. The above findings provide evaluation guideline for word designers as well as theoretical basis for character design.
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