JPH07261724A - Method for selecting character dimension or window dimension and display device using this method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a screen always easy to be seen and read by determining the dimension of a character to be displayed based on the dimension function of a display screen or a window. CONSTITUTION:In a use environment setting part 1310 a use environment such as a CRT screen dimension, maximum resolution, etc., is set by an instruction from a user, and in a dot pitch setting part 1320 a dot pitch is calculated and stored in a data storage part 1322. A window/character dimension setting part 1340 detects whether a character dimension is changed or not, and when a change is detected, an optimum window dimension is calculated by a calculating part 1344 and a display control part 1350 outputs a message of optimization or not of the window dimension to a display part 1301. When the window dimension is changed, the calculating part 1344 calculates an optimum character dimension, the display control part 1350 outputs a message of optimization or not of the character dimension, and when optimization of the character dimension is instructed, the character dimension is made optimal and displayed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for selecting a character size or a window size displayed on a terminal display device such as an information display device, mainly a workstation, a personal computer (personal computer), a word processor (word processor). is there.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a character size value of a display device of an information device such as a computer is 0.6 m in ANK character (alphanumeric kana character) in DIN (Deutsche IndstrieNorm: German Industrial Standard).
m or more, NIOSH (National Insti-tute Occupation
al Safety and Health: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), ANK characters specify 2.6 mm to 4.2 mm.
However, this defines the size of the character with respect to the standard viewing distance, and does not mention the relationship with the size of the display screen.

As a recent tendency of the user interface of the information equipment, a plurality of windows are displayed on the display device,
An increasing number of operations are performed while switching windows or changing window dimensions. In this case, whether or not the value of the character size value for the entire display screen is appropriate and also the value of the character size value for the size of the window is important in terms of legibility.

On the other hand, at present, the following means are mainly used as means for adjusting the character size value displayed on the screen.

(1) A method of presetting the resolution of the entire display in accordance with the dimensions of the display device. For example, if the screen size of the display device is 14 inches, the resolution is 640 × 4
Use with a setting of 80 dots, and with 17 inches, use a resolution of 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 dots. As a result, the dot pitch of the character is changed, so the character size is also changed.

(2) A method of storing display character data of a plurality of sizes on the information device side and switching and using them. For example
A method of storing 16-dot font data and 24-dot font data in the storage device of the information device and selecting either one when starting the software.

(3) A method of manually changing the display magnification of characters on individual software.

(4) A method of adjusting with a vertical / horizontal enlargement / reduction volume on the display device side.

However, the adjustable range is insufficient, and the operator needs skill. Moreover, the adjustment of the character size value for the entire display screen is mainly performed, and the character size value for the window size is not considered.

Further, no consideration has been given to the window size value with respect to the size of the character.

[0011]

A work station,
In a personal computer, use the mouse to instruct functions with icons (pictograms) and open windows on the screen for processing.
Large-capacity display software is increasing rapidly. Corresponding to the large flow of this software, the resolution of displays and the size of screens are increasing, and screen displays that are difficult to read tend to be scattered.

The character size of a displayed character is determined by the pixel pitch and the number of dots forming the character, and the screen size is determined by the pixel pitch and the number of pixels. Therefore, depending on these factors, the characters and screen become smaller or larger, which affects readability. Therefore, it is necessary to study the relationship between the screen size and the character size that are easy to see and read when the resolution is increased and the screen is enlarged.

An object of the present invention is to provide a method of determining the size of a display character suitable for the size of a display screen or a window in order to make the screen display easy to read.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for determining the size of a window suitable for the size of displayed characters.

[0015]

In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, at least a display means, a storage means for storing programs and data, and a data stored in the storage means are used. A storage unit for executing the program, and a display control unit for displaying a character or a window on the display unit based on a result of the program executed by the processing unit. As the data of the character size and the window size, setting means for setting the initial value in the storage means, change accepting means for accepting a change in the initial value set by the setting means, and the character changed by the change accepting means. The window size changing means for changing the window size based on the size and the change receiving means Character size changing means for changing the character size based on the window size, and the display control means is a character or window according to the size set or changed by the setting means, the window size changing means or the character size changing means. Can be displayed on the display means.

[0016]

When the user operates the device, the user works while reading the characters and sentences displayed on the display.
According to the present invention, a preferable relationship between the screen (and window) size and the character size at that time is predetermined as a function, and the character size is controlled for all screen sizes based on this function. By displaying as, a screen that is always easy to read and easy to read can be obtained. In addition, by controlling the size of the window with respect to the size of the character and displaying it, it is possible to obtain a screen that is always easy to see and read.

[0017]

EXAMPLE An evaluation experiment was conducted to make the display character size and the display screen size a preferable relationship. The contents will be described below.

The readability and legibility of sentences are also affected by the relationship between the screen size and the character size. The actual liquid crystal display cannot be used for evaluation experiments because the screen size is constant and the character size cannot be changed arbitrarily. Therefore, we made hard copies of sentences with various character size values, made screen frames of various sizes out of paper, and evaluated them by combining them.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of the evaluation experiment. Before performing the processing according to this flowchart, 13
Create evaluation text printed with standard (type) character size values. In addition, 22 levels of screen frames with different vertical and horizontal screen dimensions are created. Then, the screen size is initialized (step 101) and the character size is initialized (step 102).
That is, the screen level is fixed to one of the 22 levels and the character size is fixed to one of the 12 levels. Then, the readability of the fixed character level (character size level) in this fixed screen level is evaluated (step 103). Next, it is determined whether or not there is a character level that has not been evaluated (step 104), and if it is determined that there is a character level that has not been evaluated yet, the level of the character size is changed (step 105). , Step 10 again
Proceed to 3 to assess readability with respect to the changed character level. When it is determined in step 104 that the evaluation has been completed for all the character size levels,
In step 106, it is determined whether all screen dimensions have been evaluated. If it is determined that all screen dimensions have not been evaluated, the screen dimension level is changed (step 107) and the process returns to step 102. If it is determined in step 106 that the evaluation has been completed for all screen size levels, the process ends. The results evaluated in step 103 are totaled (step 108), and are summarized as an evaluation empirical formula (step 109) in which the easy-to-read screen size value for each character size value is optimized.

[Selection of character size]

[0021]

[Table 1]

As shown in Table 1, the character size has five levels of pixel pitch (0.204 pitch, 0.24 pitch, 0.27 pitch,
0.30 pitch, 0.33 pitch) and the number of dots that make up the characters 16 dots, 24 dots, 32 dots. The evaluated character size values are 4 to 13 marked with a circle in Table 1.

That is, 3.26 mm square, 3.84 mm square, 4.32
mm square, 4.80 mm square, 5.28 mm square, 4.90 mm square, 5.76 m
It is m square, 6.48 mm square, 6.52 mm square, 7.20 mm square.

Characters 1 to 3 smaller than this size
(2.6mm square, 2.9mm square, 3.2mm square) was added. FIG. 2 compares the size of the character size (actual size) used for evaluation.

[Evaluation sentence] As shown in FIG. 3, the sentence used for the evaluation is a part of "I am a cat" written by Soseki Natsume in the textbook of the third year of middle school.

[Typeface] As the character font of the typeface, Mincho 24-dot characters are used. A hard copy of this sentence was made using a printer. This hard copy was reduced and expanded to 13 levels of character size as shown in FIG.

[Selection of screen frame size]

[0028]

[Table 2]

Table 2 shows five levels (0.204 mm, 0.24 mm,
0.27mm, 0.3mm, 0.33mm) pixel pitch value and 10
Level horizontal pixel count (384 dots, 512 dots, 640 dots, 768 dots, 896 dots, 1024 dots, 1120 dots,
1152 dots, 1280 dots, 1408 dots) is the horizontal dimension of the screen. Considering this, the number of horizontal pixels tends to be a multiple of 128 dots due to memory limitations. From these combinations, the dimensions 6 to 22 shown in the table were used for evaluation. That is, 78.5m
m, 92.1mm, 103.7mm, 115.2mm, 126.7mm, 13
8.2mm, 153.6mm, 172.8mm, 192.0mm, 211.2m
m, 228.5mm, 245.8mm, 261.1mm, 287.2mm, 31
It is 1.0 mm, 337.9 mm and 345.6 mm. In addition, smaller dimensions 1 to 5 (50mm, 55mm, 60mm, 65m
m, 70 mm) was added. FIG. 5 shows a screen frame using this horizontal dimension value, and the ratio of the screen frame width to height is set to 4: 3 (the current product has a large ratio).

[Evaluation Method] A text (FIG. 4) and a 22-level screen frame (FIG. 5) hard-copied with 13-level character size values
The combination was performed as shown in FIG. 6 and the evaluation was made on a 5-grade scale of “easy to read to difficult to read”.

[Rate] Twenty-four women who are accustomed to VDT work and who are capable of blind touch input are used. The average age is 26.7 years (standard deviation = 7.6 years). That is, 19.1
The percentage of people aged 34.3 years is 68%.

[Evaluation Result] As shown in FIG. 7, the legibility of each character dimension value with respect to each screen dimension value is expressed by a parabola.
It was found to have the optimum peak. These parabolas are
"Readability" is Y for each text size, and X is the horizontal size of the screen.
, Y can be expressed as a quadratic expression of X.

[Evaluation Empirical Formula and Optimal Screen Size for Character Size]

[0034]

[Table 3]

An evaluation empirical formula that approximates the relationship between the readability and the screen horizontal dimension value with a parabola is obtained for each character size, and Table 3 is obtained.
Shown in. The shaded area in Table 3 is the optimum screen horizontal dimension value for each character dimension value. For example, the optimum screen lateral dimension value of the character dimension value 3.26 mm is 13.81 cm, and the optimum screen lateral dimension value of the character dimension value 4.9 mm is 22.75 cm 2.

[Example of Character Dimension Value 4.9 mm 2] FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the difference between the evaluation empirical formula and the actually measured value (evaluation result) when the character dimension value 4.9 mm 2. In this figure, the contribution rate is 96.2%, which is well predicted. In addition, the contribution ratios of the other character size values are also high, and they are well predicted. Here, the contribution rate indicates the reliability of the evaluation empirical formula. For example, in the case of the contribution rate of 100%, the measured values are all overlaid on the formula.

[Readability of Window Screen] The readability of the window screen that can be set to various sizes was examined. In this case, it is difficult to read unless the character size value is suitable for the size of the screen. Therefore, 3.5 (somewhat easier to read) is substituted for the value of Y (evaluation of readability) shown in Table 3 to obtain the value of X (horizontal dimension of screen). The value of X obtained is the upper limit and the lower limit of 2 with the optimum value as the center.
There is one.

The relationship between each character dimension value C and the upper limit value X,
The relationship between each character dimension value C and the lower limit value X, the relationship between each character dimension value C and the optimum value X are plotted in a graph, and the above three relationships are approximated by straight lines. The range surrounded by the straight line showing the upper limit value and the straight line showing the lower limit value was set as a range in which the screen dimension value and the character dimension value are easy to read, and was formulated.

The optimum value was also formulated.

[Relational Expression] Letting the screen dimension value be D and the character dimension value be C, that is, the variable X in FIG. 9 being D, the readable range is shown in equation (1) and the optimal value equation is shown in (2). . The contribution rate of the equation for obtaining the lower limit of equation (1) is high at 97.6%, and the contribution rate of the equation for obtaining the upper limit is as high as 85.8%, and the contribution rate of equation (2) for obtaining the optimum value is 93.3%. ing.

(42.4 C-44.1) ≧ D ≧ (82.8 C-118.8) (1) C = 62.6 D-81.4 (2) D: Screen size value (mm) C: Character size value (mm)

[0042]

[Table 4]

Table 4 is an example in which the optimum relationship and the preferable relationship between the screen dimension value and the character dimension value are calculated as numerical values by using the equations (1) and (2).

When window screens of various sizes are opened, character size values suitable for various horizontal screen sizes are obtained in advance from equation (2), and the character size suitable for the screen size is automatically cut. If it is changed, the display characters will be easier to read. Also, make it possible to manually set a range that is easy to read. FIG. 10 shows an easy-to-read screen display according to the present invention, and FIG.
(a) and (b) are examples of screen displays that are difficult to read.

As described above, the horizontal character size value was examined with respect to the display screen size value. As with the horizontal character size, the vertical character size C (mm) and the display screen vertical size E ( mm) can also be estimated. Research data by Mr. Toyohiko Hatada, Tokyo Polytechnic University ("Science of spectacles" edited by The Japan Society of Ophthalmology, published by Tokyo Optical Co., Ltd., 1983, 7th edition)
, P. According to 6), the eyeball moves freely within a total angle range of about 30 degrees, which is about 15 degrees to the left and right, while about 8 degrees above,
It can move freely within a total angle of about 20 degrees, about 12 degrees below. These 30 degrees and 20 degrees are abbreviated to 3 and 2, and the above equation (1), the equation
In (2), it is sufficient to set 2D = 3E. Therefore, the vertical dimension value C (mm) of the vertically written characters and the vertical dimension value E (mm) of the display screen are 0.67 (42.4 C-44.1) ≤ E ≤ 0.67 (82.8 C-118.8) The optimum value relationship between the vertical dimension value C (mm) of the character and the vertical dimension value E (mm) of the display screen is E = 41.7C-54.3.

[Application to Display Device] Workstation
(WS), personal computer (PC), word processing (WP) hardware processing process diagram, system configuration diagram, flow chart are described.

[Hardware Processing Process Diagram] FIG. 12 shows a hardware processing process.

Setting of usage environment (connected device) ← Initialization when changing connection CRT (CRT screen size and maximum resolution are input).

The dot pitch is calculated from the data,
Record as data.

Initialize the sentence attributes of the application (character size and window size are automatically set). When the user changes the window / character size, window ≦ screen size.

The changed window / character size is recognized and recorded as data.

The character / window size is optimized (by the character size determination method of the present invention) based on the recognized data.

Changeover switch (software-like)
Depending on a) character size / window size processing screen (optimal processing), b) arbitrary enlargement / reduction screen (enlargement / reduction),
c) Switch the layout display screen (fixed).

The window size is a) optimal processing and b)
Switch between enlargement / reduction and c) Fixed.

It is to be noted that an outline font is required instead of a bitmap font, so that various fonts can be supported.

[System Configuration Diagram] FIG. 13 is a system configuration diagram for explaining the system configuration. This system has an arithmetic processing unit 1300, a display unit 1301 and a data input unit 1302. The arithmetic processing unit 1300 includes a memory 1303 and a display control unit 135.
0, CPU 1360, outline font data storage unit 137
Has 0 and. The memory 1303 includes a use environment setting unit 1310, a dot pitch setting unit 1320, and an application sentence attribute storage unit.
1330, equipped with a window / character size setting unit 1340.

The use environment setting unit 1310 is an initial data storage unit.
1311 and a change data storage unit 1312. The dot pitch setting unit 1320 has a calculation unit 1321 and a data storage unit 1322. The application statement attribute storage unit 1330 has an initial data storage unit 1331. Window / character size setting part 1340
Has a recognition unit 1341, a data storage unit 1342, a preset data storage unit 1343, and a calculation unit 1344. Calculation unit 1321, recognition unit
The calculation unit 1344 and the calculation unit 1344 are composed of programs stored in the memory 1303.

The initial data storage unit 1311 stores default values of the usage environment such as the CRT screen size and maximum resolution. The change data storage unit 1312 stores data for changing the display state according to the intention of the user. The calculation unit 1321
The dot pitch is calculated based on the data set by the use environment setting unit 1310. The data storage unit 1322 is the calculation unit 1321.
Store the data calculated in.

The initial data storage unit 1331 has the attributes of the target sentence, that is, whether the sentence is a mixture of hiragana / kanji, alphanumeric characters, etc., and the standard character size and standard window size for this character. Store as. The recognition unit 1341 recognizes the attribute and stores it in the data storage unit 1342. The preset data storage unit 1343 stores an expression for calculating the window size from the character size. The calculation unit 1344 detects a change in the character size and the window size and executes the optimization calculation process of the window size and the character size.

The display control unit 1350 converts the outline font data 1370 stored in the outline font data storage unit 1370 into the optimum window size calculated by the calculation unit 1344 into the optimum character size and displays it in the display unit 1301. To display. Also, a message to the user is displayed on the display unit 1301.

The data input unit 1302 inputs an instruction from the user and inputs it to the arithmetic processing unit 1300.

[Flowchart] The operation of each part in FIG.
This will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, the use environment setting unit 1310 is used by the user to set the use environment such as the CRT screen size and the maximum resolution (step 1401). If not set by the user, the initial data storage unit 1311 in the use environment setting unit 1310
The default value stored in is valid.

Next, the dot pitch setting unit 1320 is a calculation unit.
The dot pitch is calculated by 1321, and the calculated data is stored in the data storage unit 1322 (step 1402). Further, the application sentence attribute storage unit 1330 is initialized, and the standard character size and the standard window size are initialized (step 1403).

Next, the window / character size setting unit 1340 detects whether the character size has been changed (step 140).
Four). When a change in the character size is detected, the calculation unit 134
The optimum window size is calculated by step 4 (step 1
405). Next, the display control unit 1350 outputs to the display unit 1301 a message asking the user whether to optimize the window size (step 1406). The user inputs from the data input unit 1302 to the window / character size setting unit 1340 whether or not to optimize the window size. When the optimization of the window size is instructed, the window size is optimized (step 1409) and the process ends (step 1409).
1410). In step 1406, when the optimization of the window size is not instructed, the process proceeds to step 1407,
A message asking the user whether to enlarge / reduce the window size is output (step 1407). From the data input unit 1302, the user can determine whether to enlarge / reduce the window size by the window / character size setting unit 13
Enter 40. If the window size is to be enlarged / reduced, the process returns to step 1404. When the window size is not enlarged / reduced, the window size is fixed to the standard size set in step 1403 and the process ends (step 141).
8).

If the change in the character size is not detected in step 1404, the window / character size setting unit 1340 detects whether or not the window size is changed (step 1416). When the change in the window size is detected, the calculating unit 1344 calculates the optimum character size (step 1412). Next, the display control unit 1350 displays the display unit 1301.
A message asking the user whether to optimize the character size is output (step 1413). The user
The data input unit 1302 inputs to the window / character size setting unit 1340 whether or not to optimize the character size. When the optimization of the character size is instructed, the character size is optimized (step 1416) and the process ends (step 1417). Step
If the optimization of the character size is not instructed in 1406, the process proceeds to step 1414, and a message asking the user whether to enlarge / reduce the character size is output. From the data input unit 1302, the user can determine whether to enlarge / reduce the character size in the window / character size setting unit 13
Enter 40. To enlarge / reduce the character size,
Return to step 1404. When the character size is not enlarged / reduced, the window size is fixed to the standard size set in step 1403, and the process ends (step 1419).

If the window size is not changed in step 1416, the process ends (step 1418).

[0068]

As described above, an easy-to-read screen can be obtained by controlling the size of the displayed character based on the relational expression (function) obtained in the present invention. That is, it is possible to set the character size corresponding to the screen size of various display devices. Further, even if the size of the display screen such as a window changes, by controlling the character size by this character size selection method, an easy-to-read window screen can be obtained.

Further, by controlling the size of the window according to the character size, an easy-to-read window screen can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a flow chart of the operation of a system utilizing the method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of comparison of character sizes.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of contents of a hard copy sentence.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing hard copy evaluation sentences having different character sizes.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen frame.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a method of evaluating by combining a sentence and a screen frame.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing “evaluation result of easy-to-read screen size with respect to character size”.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing “an error between an evaluation empirical formula having a character size of 4.9 mm and an actual measurement value (evaluation result)”.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing “readable range and optimum value”.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a screen that is easy to read.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a screen that is difficult to read.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of a hardware processing process.

FIG. 13 is a system configuration diagram that uses the method of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of an evaluation experiment.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location G09G 5/14 C 9471-5G 5/26 9471-5G (72) Inventor Fumio-gun Hatano, Kanagawa Prefecture No. 1 Horiyamashita, Horiyama, Japan (72) Inventor, Hirotsugu Misaka 5-34, Nakagawa, Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Ltd. Home Appliance Business Headquarters, Living Software Development Center, Hitachi, Ltd. (72) Inventor, Sasaki Jin Shinagawa 5-chome, Nakagawa 5-chome, Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Ltd. Home Appliance Business Division, Home Appliance Business Division, Living Software Development Center (72) Inventor Makoto Tsumura 7-1 Omika-cho, Hitachi City, Ibaraki Hitachi Co., Ltd. Hitachi In the laboratory (72) Inventor Shigehiko Takayama 1-5-1, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Hitachi, Ltd. Electronic Dev Scan in the Division

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A display method for displaying characters on a display screen or window for displaying characters or images, wherein the size of the characters displayed on the display screen or window is a function of the size of the display screen or window. Character size selection method characterized by setting based on. 2. A display method for displaying characters in a window for displaying characters and images, wherein the size of the window is set based on a function of the size of the displayed characters. Selection method. 3. At least display means, storage means for storing a program and data, a processing device for executing the program based on the data stored in the storage means, and a processing device for executing the program. In a display device including display control means for displaying a character or a window on the display means based on the result of the program, initial values of character dimensions and window dimensions are set in the storage means as data of the storage means. Setting means, change accepting means for accepting a change in the initial value set by the setting means, window size changing means for changing the window size based on the character size changed by the change accepting means, and the change accepting means Character size that changes the character size based on the window size changed by means Change means, the display control means displays on the display means a character or a window having a size set or changed by the setting means, the window size changing means or the character size changing means. apparatus.