Reading Content on Mobile Devices
Summary: Readers can understand short, simple text content on mobile devices just as well as on computers, but they slow down when reading difficult text on mobile.
In 2010, researchers at the University of Alberta found that reading comprehension was impaired when content was presented on a mobile-size screen versus a larger computer screen. A simple explanation for this result was that, with a small screen, users saw less of the text at any given time, so they had to rely more on their memory to access contextual information needed during reading. In other words, the smaller screen resulted in a higher working-memory load. People could not sustain that higher load, so their comprehension suffered.
In our research, conducted six years later, we found a surprisingly different result. We asked 276 participants to read a variety of articles on various topics on either a mobile phone or a personal computer. Some of the articles were easy and some were difficult. After each article, we asked participants to answer a few questions to measure their level of comprehension of the content. We found no practical differences in the comprehension scores of the participants, whether they were reading on a mobile device or a computer.
Despite this finding, we still recommend prioritizing brevity and reducing unnecessary content when writing for mobile.
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Source: Nielsen Norman Group
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