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"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being a

by tssva 7y ago

"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being among that advice. In 2005 many displays were still 4:3 ratio and this advice more applicable. With modern 16:9 ratio screens 66 character line lengths can seem extremely short and require unnecessary vertical scrolling to view a message with such line length. I find it quite visually jarring to receive an email with a fixed width that wastes the horizontal space of the viewing window. Instead of being fixed width the text should be reflowed to properly fill the viewing window.

sagichmal 7y ago
The optimal width of a column of text is not a function of the container it is in, or the screen it is displayed on, but rather a constant based on the capacities of human vision. It's roughly empirically accepted that it's easier for us to read a block of text that flows from one line to the next after approximately 65-85 characters. Thus that extra space on the margins isn't wasted, it's serving an important purpose.
atoav 7y ago
I got typographic education, and the reason we limit line with on paper (think about the biggest newspaper you know), isn’t because the lack of space. I know newspapers that are bigger than any typical display you’d find at a work place. Shorter lines are easier and faster to read and you don’t have to turn your head back and forth every line. This is what German Typographers would call a Bleiwüste, which means “lead desert” and translates to wall of text. And they call it that for a reason. Typographers use a wall of text when they want to disencourage users from reading it (legal text etc). Column based layouts (like in newspapers) don’t work well with scolling pages, but limited line width certainly does. Scrolling doesn’t really cost the user much and on top of that smartphones limit the line width anyway, so users get a more consistent design.
- tssva 7y ago
  I think you minimize the impact of scrolling. I fine scrolling to be extremely distracting and annoying when the material could have been presented without requiring scrolling. On my computer I can resize windows and within some apps such as my email app the display view so that it meets what is optimal for me and not some generalized value. It is not unreasonable to expect the text presented to me to reflow to meet my preference.
coldtea 7y ago
>"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being among that advice. In 2005 many displays were still 4:3 ratio and this advice more applicable. With modern 16:9 ratio screens 66 character line lengths can seem extremely short and require unnecessary vertical scrolling to view a message with such line length. The advice given wasn't based on the technology of the era, but on the optimal line length for reading in general. That's invariant to how more wide a screen one has (or to whether the "text" looks not wide enough compared to the screen), and based on how far the eyes should go to read something, and whether the reader loses their place (line they are in etc) by the time the roll back and forth at the end of a line to start the new one. >Instead of being fixed width the text should be reflowed to properly fill the viewing window. That's the worst possible situation, and not found to be good by any reading research (on paper or screen).
- tssva 7y ago
  First of all given the issues with reproducibility within both hard sciences and especially soft sciences I will have to take any results from reading research with a grain of salt until I am able to actually read the specifics of any study. But even for purposes here if I say I accept the results than still the best it can produce regarding a fixed character length is a number which best meets the need of the population as a whole. Which means it might not be the optimal number for me. The great thing about my computer is that I can adjust windows and text view sizes to what I find optimal for myself. It is not unreasonable to expect text adjust to the setting I have chosen as optimal for myself. Both the expectation that text will reflow and that 66 character line lengths are too short is not unique to me. A quick Google search returns a large number of hits regarding people looking for ways to have either the emails they send or receive be reflowed in their email app.

by tssva 7y ago

sagichmal 7y ago

The optimal width of a column of text is not a function of the container it is in, or the screen it is displayed on, but rather a constant based on the capacities of human vision. It's roughly empirically accepted that it's easier for us to read a block of text that flows from one line to the next after approximately 65-85 characters. Thus that extra space on the margins isn't wasted, it's serving an important purpose.

atoav 7y ago

I got typographic education, and the reason we limit line with on paper (think about the biggest newspaper you know), isn’t because the lack of space. I know newspapers that are bigger than any typical display you’d find at a work place. Shorter lines are easier and faster to read and you don’t have to turn your head back and forth every line. This is what German Typographers would call a Bleiwüste, which means “lead desert” and translates to wall of text. And they call it that for a reason. Typographers use a wall of text when they want to disencourage users from reading it (legal text etc). Column based layouts (like in newspapers) don’t work well with scolling pages, but limited line width certainly does. Scrolling doesn’t really cost the user much and on top of that smartphones limit the line width anyway, so users get a more consistent design.

tssva 7y ago
I think you minimize the impact of scrolling. I fine scrolling to be extremely distracting and annoying when the material could have been presented without requiring scrolling. On my computer I can resize windows and within some apps such as my email app the display view so that it meets what is optimal for me and not some generalized value. It is not unreasonable to expect the text presented to me to reflow to meet my preference.

coldtea 7y ago

>"The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web" was originally released in 2005 and I'm afraid some of the advice may be stuck there. This advice being among that advice. In 2005 many displays were still 4:3 ratio and this advice more applicable. With modern 16:9 ratio screens 66 character line lengths can seem extremely short and require unnecessary vertical scrolling to view a message with such line length. The advice given wasn't based on the technology of the era, but on the optimal line length for reading in general. That's invariant to how more wide a screen one has (or to whether the "text" looks not wide enough compared to the screen), and based on how far the eyes should go to read something, and whether the reader loses their place (line they are in etc) by the time the roll back and forth at the end of a line to start the new one. >Instead of being fixed width the text should be reflowed to properly fill the viewing window. That's the worst possible situation, and not found to be good by any reading research (on paper or screen).

tssva 7y ago
First of all given the issues with reproducibility within both hard sciences and especially soft sciences I will have to take any results from reading research with a grain of salt until I am able to actually read the specifics of any study. But even for purposes here if I say I accept the results than still the best it can produce regarding a fixed character length is a number which best meets the need of the population as a whole. Which means it might not be the optimal number for me. The great thing about my computer is that I can adjust windows and text view sizes to what I find optimal for myself. It is not unreasonable to expect text adjust to the setting I have chosen as optimal for myself. Both the expectation that text will reflow and that 66 character line lengths are too short is not unique to me. A quick Google search returns a large number of hits regarding people looking for ways to have either the emails they send or receive be reflowed in their email app.