The effects of screen size on subtitle layout preferences and comprehension across devices

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24197/her.22.2020.157-182

Keywords:

Accesibility, New techonologies, Readability, Screen size, Subtitling

Abstract

The present study sheds light on the possible effects that screen size can have on preferences and comprehension of audiovisual material content shown with subtitles. Three video excerpts with subtitles displayed on three devices with different screen size (monitor, tablet, and smartphone) were presented to 30 participants, who were asked to fill out preference and comprehension questionnaires after viewing the subtitled film excerpt. The aim of this study was to provide new empirical evidence on viewers’ needs and preferences of readability by analyzing the reception of subtitles across screens. The results obtained indicate that smartphone devices had the most unsatisfactory effects, suggesting the need to undertake further research on small screens to improve subtitling reading performance and adapt subtitles according to the screen size.

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Author Biographies

  • Olivia Gerber-Morón, , Department of Translation and Interpreting & East Asian Studies Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

    Olivia Gerber-Morón holds a Bachelor of Arts in Multilingual Communication and a Master of Arts in Specialized Translation from the University of Geneva, and a Master of Arts in Audiovisual Translation from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She is part of the TransMedia Catalonia Research Group and has collaborated on the HBB4ALL European project as the subtitle work package leader for UAB user tests. The “la Caixa” Foundation has awarded her a PhD grant. Her research areas of interest in Audiovisual Translation are subtitling, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing, and respeaking. Her PhD research focuses on defining the quality of line breaks across the different platforms and screens in order to create guidelines and standards to regulate subtitle segmentation for translators, broadcasters and other interested entities in the audiovisual industry.

  • Olga Soler-Vilageliu, , Department of Basic, Educational, and Developmental Psychology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

    Olga Soler-Vilageliu is a senior lecturer in the Department of Basic, Evolutive and Educational Psychology Psychology, at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where she teaches psychology of language to undergraduate students of speech therapy and psychology. Her main research interest is language processing, and she is involved in projects on literacy learning and media accessibility.

  • Judit Castellà, , Department of Basic, Educational, and Developmental Psychology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

    Judit Castellà holds a PhD in Psychology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology (UAB and UOC). Her current research interests focus on working memory, visual attention, and time perception. She has undertaken research visits to the Universities of York and Bristol and has several publications in indexed journals. She is currently collaborating in the HBB4ALL European project (CIP-ICT PSC Call 7).

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Published

2021-02-01

Issue

No. 22 (2020)

Section

ARTICLES

License

The articles published at Hermēneus. Revista de Traducción e Interpretación will have a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

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