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Main Authors: Gallardo, Sebastián, Wu, Hui-Yin, Mazauric, Dorian, Kornprobst, Pierre, Di Meo, Monica, Baillif, Stéphanie, Calabrese, Aurelie
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27010
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author Gallardo, Sebastián
Wu, Hui-Yin
Mazauric, Dorian
Kornprobst, Pierre
Di Meo, Monica
Baillif, Stéphanie
Calabrese, Aurelie
author_facet Gallardo, Sebastián
Wu, Hui-Yin
Mazauric, Dorian
Kornprobst, Pierre
Di Meo, Monica
Baillif, Stéphanie
Calabrese, Aurelie
contents Understanding how diverse audiences engage with structured media is critical to ensure a consistent quality of experience. In this context, we quantify the behavioral and performance cost of manual navigation (e.g., pinch and zoom) versus direct structural access in layout-based digital documents. We specifically investigate newspaper reading when visual access to structural cues (headlines as entry points) is constrained. Participants completed two tasks-reading all headlines aloud and locating target articles-under two conditions: (1) original edition with gesture-based magnification (pan and zoom), which is the industry standard for digital documents, and (2) large-print edition supporting direct-access reading. We collected performance measures (success ratio and completion time), behavioral integrity through reading path analysis, alongside perceived workload and preferences (NASA-TLX). Results from linear mixed-effects models show that the large-print condition yielded not only better performance than gesture-based magnification (18% improvement in reading speed, 30% improvement in speed to locate a target), but more importantly, restored the natural reading strategy that gesture-based magnification interaction disrupts. Readers also reported lower workload and higher preference. These findings highlight the importance of developing automated methods for generating large-print editions, where layout adaptation complements font scaling to support accessibility and quality of experience.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_27010
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantifying the Cost of Manual Navigation: A Comparison of Gesture-Based Magnification versus Direct Access Reading in Digital Layout-based Documents
Gallardo, Sebastián
Wu, Hui-Yin
Mazauric, Dorian
Kornprobst, Pierre
Di Meo, Monica
Baillif, Stéphanie
Calabrese, Aurelie
Human-Computer Interaction
Understanding how diverse audiences engage with structured media is critical to ensure a consistent quality of experience. In this context, we quantify the behavioral and performance cost of manual navigation (e.g., pinch and zoom) versus direct structural access in layout-based digital documents. We specifically investigate newspaper reading when visual access to structural cues (headlines as entry points) is constrained. Participants completed two tasks-reading all headlines aloud and locating target articles-under two conditions: (1) original edition with gesture-based magnification (pan and zoom), which is the industry standard for digital documents, and (2) large-print edition supporting direct-access reading. We collected performance measures (success ratio and completion time), behavioral integrity through reading path analysis, alongside perceived workload and preferences (NASA-TLX). Results from linear mixed-effects models show that the large-print condition yielded not only better performance than gesture-based magnification (18% improvement in reading speed, 30% improvement in speed to locate a target), but more importantly, restored the natural reading strategy that gesture-based magnification interaction disrupts. Readers also reported lower workload and higher preference. These findings highlight the importance of developing automated methods for generating large-print editions, where layout adaptation complements font scaling to support accessibility and quality of experience.
title Quantifying the Cost of Manual Navigation: A Comparison of Gesture-Based Magnification versus Direct Access Reading in Digital Layout-based Documents
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27010