In the past people thought that words written in capital letters were more difficult to read than words written in a mixture of capital and lowercase letters. Recent studies have shown that this is not true. We don't look at the shape of words, but instead we look at the shape of individual letters to make out the word.
When people read their eyes move in quick, sharp jumps, with short periods of stillness in between. These jumps are called saccades and the moments of stillness are called fixations. During the saccades we are essentially blind, but because it happens so fast we are not aware of what's happening.
Reading and comprehending are two different things. Just because you can read something doesn't mean you understand it. Happens to me a lot. If I am to assigned to read something that uses difficult language and a topic I am not familiar with, I can read through the whole paper and not know what I have read.
Although there has been arguments in that past about whether sans serif fonts or serif fonts are easier to read, research shows no difference between the two when it comes to comprehension. What font you use shouldn't matter as long as you don't use a font that is so decorative that it's hard to identify the letters.
Font size matters. Not just for old people, but also for the young. The font size needs to be big enough for users to read the text without strain.
Reading on a computer screen is harder than reading on paper. This is due to the fact that writing on a computer screen is not stable because it is constantly refreshing. Also there is light emitting from the computer screen that is tiring to the eyes.
Although people prefer multiple columns with short line length, studies show that people read faster with a longer line length.
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