The influence of subtitle design of short videos on people’s comprehension and visual attention distribution

Abstract

The boom in the short video streaming industry is bringing a revolution to the ways people receive information. More and more people are inclined to get information through vertical short videos instead of the traditional horizontal longer videos. Subtitles play an essential role in people’s comprehension of videos and influence people’s visual attention distribution. Previous research showed that in traditional videos, people can process the subtitles and image information effortlessly without missing the information of both. However, in the short video industry, the subtitles are presented in many ways which are different from the traditional ones. This study explored the influence of subtitles setting on comprehension and visual attention distribution. The result showed that there was no difference in comprehension scores across videos with different subtitle conditions. However, the data showed that among the short videos, the participants fixated on the subtitles which were at the top much less than the ones in the middle, which can possibly mean that the design of top subtitles is more reasonable. The study showed different viewing patterns in short videos compared to the traditional horizontal ones. It shed light on future research on the influence of subtitle design on information conversion and interface design of short videos.