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I agree in most cases except when reading articles. It's scientifically proven that it is easier to read anything if a line doesn't exceed ~ 75 characters. I lo

I agree in most cases except when reading articles. It's scientifically proven that it is easier to read anything if a line doesn't exceed ~ 75 characters. I love blogs and news websites which have very narrow fixed width UIs for optimal reading and really dislike blogs which are wider than 600-700 pixels.

sorenjan 8y ago
I wish more site would use columns, like in print. I agree that really wide text is hard to read, but instead of making one narrow column you need to scroll through, you can divide it into multiple columns. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns
- pintxo 8y ago
  True, but unfortunately the concept of print does not translate well to the web. CSS colums can either be width or height limited: Fix to 2 columns: you cannot control the height, if it goes beyond the screen height, users need to scroll down on the first column, then scroll back to the start of the 2nd column. Fix to the screen height: you cannot control the width, it it goes beyond the screen, users need to scroll horizontally to read the text. Although this somehow would work, it's really not general behavior on the web to scroll horizontally.
  - yellowbuilding 8y ago
    Or just keep the regular scrolling and have the second (and third, fourth, etc. if they fit) begin on the next line that would be off-screen in the previous column. This would be a great browser plugin that could be flipped on or off.
V-2 8y ago
So that's why books are printed on till rolls! ;) Seriously though - here's what a Wired article looks like on my 24" monitor. Chrome, no zoom. https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX Text occupies 420px out of 1600; barely over 25% of screen width. I'm aware reading may be a dying art, and new generations are lacking long attention span, but squashing text into an average of 9 words per line feels infuriating to me, you can downvote me all you want. My eyes are dangling out of my sockets from going left to right and back and forth three times a second, not to mention constantly having to scroll the page vertically. I'm not a scientist, though - YMMV of course.

sorenjan 8y ago

I wish more site would use columns, like in print. I agree that really wide text is hard to read, but instead of making one narrow column you need to scroll through, you can divide it into multiple columns. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns

pintxo 8y ago
True, but unfortunately the concept of print does not translate well to the web. CSS colums can either be width or height limited: Fix to 2 columns: you cannot control the height, if it goes beyond the screen height, users need to scroll down on the first column, then scroll back to the start of the 2nd column. Fix to the screen height: you cannot control the width, it it goes beyond the screen, users need to scroll horizontally to read the text. Although this somehow would work, it's really not general behavior on the web to scroll horizontally.
- yellowbuilding 8y ago
  Or just keep the regular scrolling and have the second (and third, fourth, etc. if they fit) begin on the next line that would be off-screen in the previous column. This would be a great browser plugin that could be flipped on or off.

V-2 8y ago

So that's why books are printed on till rolls! ;) Seriously though - here's what a Wired article looks like on my 24" monitor. Chrome, no zoom. https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX Text occupies 420px out of 1600; barely over 25% of screen width. I'm aware reading may be a dying art, and new generations are lacking long attention span, but squashing text into an average of 9 words per line feels infuriating to me, you can downvote me all you want. My eyes are dangling out of my sockets from going left to right and back and forth three times a second, not to mention constantly having to scroll the page vertically. I'm not a scientist, though - YMMV of course.