Research on the legibility of Chinese display character sizes in virtual environments

Whether in the real world or VEs (virtual environments), text reading is one of the fundamental ways for individuals to acquire information. In VEs relying on head-mounted displays, users often encounter difficulties in reading text, particularly when it involves languages with higher complexity, such as Chinese. In light of this, this paper focuses on Chinese display character sizes in VEs and explores the factors and size thresholds that affect text legibility. Using parameter adjustment, two ergonomic experiments were designed to investigate the minimum legibility and preference thresholds of Chinese character sizes in VEs. The minimum legibility reading experiment employed two different-resolution virtual reality devices, including five levels of Chinese character complexity and four text rendering distances. The comfort reading experiment involved four levels of Chinese character complexity and three text rendering distances. The experimental results validate the impact of hardware resolution and Chinese character complexity on the minimum legibility and size preference of Chinese text. Based on these findings, the minimum legibility and preference size thresholds in VEs were determined for Chinese characters. These research outcomes can be applied to the setting of Chinese display characters in VEs.