Landscape or Portrait? The Impact of Page Orientation on the Understandability of Scientific Posters

Abstract

The recent developments in the eye tracking technology lead to new insights in how humans read, yet little is known about how the layout affects the comprehension. In this study, the differences in the understandability and the reading behaviour of two different page orientations (portrait and landscape) of a scientific poster are investigated. An eye tracking experiment was designed to find out whether the participants focus more on different areas in different orientations and whether the orientation has any effect on the reading behaviour or the overall comprehension of the poster. The participants' gazes were recorded and mapped onto the document using homographies. The saccade and transitional analysis over 30 participants concludes that the portrait orientation is better for remembering specific details while the landscape orientation supplements a high level understanding.