Re: How to display format=flowed?
* Thomas Zehetbauer <thomasz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [2005-10-14 14:34]:
> On 2005-10-13 | 19:24:37, Holger Weiss wrote:
> >In any case, longer lines will increase horizontal eye movement much
> >more than vertical eye movement. You seem to state that readability is
> >affected by vertical eye movement only, which is wrong.
>
> We almost always have horizontal eye movement when reading, continous
> eye movement is not a bad thing,
Too _much_ horizontal movement per line definitely is a bad. AFAIK this
is completely unchallenged outside of mutt-dev, please see _any_ text on
typography regarding this question before suggesting the opposite.
| Magazine and book columns are narrow for physiologic reasons: at normal
| reading distances the eye's span of movement is only about 8 cm (3
| inches) wide, so designers try to keep dense passages of text in columns
| no wider than reader's comfortable eye span. Wider lines of text require
| the readers to move their heads slightly, or strain their eye muscles to
| track over the long lines of text.
[ http://www.rz.uni-hohenheim.de/www/styleguides/manual/pages/typography2.html ]
I still have no idea why this shouldn't apply to on-screen text, and,
as I said before, studies seem to show it does in just the same way.
| conclusions have mostly favored short to medium line lengths. For
| example, it has been recommended by researchers that shorter line
| lengths (about 60 CPL) should be used in place of longer, full-screen
| lengths, since longer line lengths require greater lateral eye
| movements, which makes it more likely to lose one's place within the
| text (Horton, 1989; Mills & Weldon, 1987). Horton (1989) points out that
| longer line lengths are more tiring to read and recommends limiting line
| lengths to around 40 to 60 CPL. Huey (1968) generally supports this
| recommendation by finding that narrower line lengths (approximately 4"
| or 10 cm) are more accurate on the return sweep than longer line
| lengths. Gregory and Poulton (1970) maintain that people with poor
| reading ability performed better when the line length was approximately
| seven words.
[ http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/42/text_length.htm ]
Holger
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