On Wednesday, 23 April 2014 at 16:13:37 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
... first hit is
http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13724/recommended-column-width-for-text-reading-digital-vs-printed
pointing to a study indicating 95 characters per line as
optimal for on-screen reading comprehension. The subjective
preferences, however, was biased toward smaller numbers.
The second link is
http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability which points to
a few studies concluding that 50-75 cpl (characters per line)
would be indicated for web design.
Third is
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7460041/whats-a-good-maximum-width-of-text-on-a-webpage
which quotes a really nice collection of numbers from Smashing
Magazine from popular websites, showing that 84% of the sites
they looked at use 65-104 cpl.
It just struck me that Google's own search page that I'm
looking at right now, which I vaguely recall did not limit line
lengths a few years ago, is now using a 90 cpl limit. The
page's right-hand side is a white area.
Next is
http://webstyleguide.com/wsg3/7-page-design/6-page-width-line-length.html,
which mentions 66 cpl as optimal from a physiological
standpoint.
Next is http://socialtriggers.com/perfect-content-width/ which
nicely advocates smaller cpl at the top of the content (so
people read the essential message quickly) followed by 100 cpl.
Gosh now I finally know what researches to blame for my eyes
bleeding upon most web site restylings (Facebook *caugh-caugh*).
If anything it just shows that overall reading skills are
decreasing and no one care about visitors with small fonts (me).
But current HTML/CSS standards don't provide way to express sizes
as percentage of screen width (as opposed to page window width),
do they?
