[thelist] Line lengths + screen sizes (was RE: Site Critique)

Robert Goodyear rob_goodyear at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 28 20:37:55 CDT 2001


Acutally, forget the usability studies... line length is a tenet of typographic design
that predates electronic display and the internet by a couple of hundred years. Shorter
lines give the eye a way to keep their place in the copy when wrapping to the next line.
Same holds for right- or full-justified copy... without a righthand rag, it's much harder
to keep one's place in the copy.

But none of this really speaks to a user's preferences, does it? I guess in a perfect
world that truly followed craftsmen's rules, every website in the world would be black
text on white background with red for emphasis. And that's not gonna happen, is it?

/rg

--- Paul Cowan <paul at wishlist.com.au> wrote:
> Wade Armstrong [mailto:wade at runstrong.com] wrote:
> > I think the fixed design works a little better... line 
> > lengths get a bit
> > long past 1024x768 on the liquid design.
> 
> Really? I've never understood this argument. People here use it all the 
> time: "readability studies show that line lengths over [x] words are
> hard to read, we should shrink everything to a fixed pixel width."
> 
> No, you shouldn't. I run my screen at 1280x1024; I have my browser window
> maxxed. If I found it hard to read, I would change my resolution or
> resize my window. My having a maxxed browser window at that res, perhaps
> indicates I PREFER that line length?
> 


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