Line length and readability
We’ve always been told that lines of text should not be longer than 55 - 65 characters or thereabouts. Well, guess what – longer lines may not be that bad for on-screen readability after all:
- The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News, a study published at Usability News, shows that line lengths of 95 characters per line result in higher reading speed.
- The paper How physical text layout affects reading from screen points in the same direction. Joe Clark has posted some comments on the study in Line lengths when reading from a screen.
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Comments
I’m not at all suprised by these findings. I think there is difference between line readability in print, and line readability on the screen. Size and choice of typeface seem far more important metrics.
“longer lines may not be that bad for on-screen readability after all”
Yeah, but they still look like arse.
How can a study that measures only 20 students of a particular university be considered a vaild analysis of the total population of internet users?
I highly recommend that anyone taking this information seriously should review “20 Questions Journalists Should Ask About Poll Results”
http://www.publicagenda.org/polling/polling_20q.cfm
As well as Robert Niles’ “Statistics Every Writer Should Know”
http://www.robertniles.com/stats/
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