Textproof Chronicle

Derek Powazek writes, in his Note to Apple: Justified text decreases readability on Flickr:

Safari 5's new "Reader" feature makes my site less readable by justifying the text. Flush-left text (aka ragged-right) is demonstrably more readable, especially when the rendering engine doesn't know how to hyphenate. You never, ever justify text without hyphenation.

Justified text was invented to define columns of text in multi-column layouts (like newspapers). Why they chose to justify the text in a 1-coumn view that's supposed to be more readable is beyond me.

The point about poor hyphenation must be right, but what about the claim that Flush-left text ... is demonstrably more readable? This is widely claimed, but the evidence isn't overwhelming.

First, a point of terminology: flush left and ragged right are actually independent constraints on paragraph layout, and all of the four combinations of either flush or ragged left with either flush or ragged right have their place. Flush right generally means that the right edges of the all the rightmost letters line up —although note that this will not be exactly true if text layout uses microtypography— while ragged right means allows the horizontal distance between the rights edges to vary. Justified text is text that is both flush left and flush right, and for our purposes here, we can simplify and consider only flush left text.

The key point, then, is that ragged right is consistent with using the same width space between words, whilst justified text must allow the interword space to vary.

In an influential article, Williams (2000, p394) recommends the use of [s]et type intended for extended reading flush left, and ragged right because (p390) [n]on-uniform spacing between words decreases reading speed by as much as 11 percent (Trollip and Sales 1986).

However, I believe that such an increase in reading speed depends on lines being relatively long, where the speed up arises from the better rhythm the eye can achieve as it moves between eye fixations. As lines become shorter, the proportion of time the eye spends moving from the end of one line to the beginning of the next becomes larger. This should be faster with justified text for two reasons:

1. Short lines tend to happen because of either the existence of inset items such as photographs, or multi-column text. Good page layout demands more space between the right edge of a text column and what is to its right for ragged right text than for justified text, because with justified text it is easier for the reader to accurately grasp the shape of the text block (cf. Williams 2000, p387, on complexity). This difference in needed margin is quite significant, and so when there is little width, justified text will have a lower proprtion of expensive line jumps to regular, in-line eye movements.

2. The line jumps are regular with justified text, since the right edge of each line is a constant horizontal distance to the left edge of the next line. Thus, with short lines, there is a better possibility of generating eye-fixation rhythm from line to line with justified text than with ragged.

So, as the line becomes shorter, the case for faster readability of ragged text becomes weaker. With multicolumn page layouts, it may be the case that justified text is generally more readable; certainly, the practice generally is to use justified text with multicolumn layouts. To answer the question: which should I use, I recommend the advice of Newsletter Fillers.

References

Trollip, S. R., and G. Sales, 1986. "Readability of computer-generated fill-justified text." Human Factors 28:159-163.

Williams, T. R., 2000. Guidelines for Designing and Evaluating the Display of Information on the Web. In Technical Communication 2000(3):383-396.

Nik Fletcher, in On this Safari 5 Reader Hysteria, discusses the hyperreaction of many link-baiting web publishers to Apple's new Safari Reader feature, which strips sidebar material such as adverts, placed links, comments, and syndication buttons from pages to leave the principal content, the writing that drew the reader to the web page. Nik sums up his reaction:

Amen to that. If anything, instead of this belligerent whinging, web publishers should wise up that people visit their sites to read content. Safari Reader does hide ads, after they - along with the almost-constant barrage of "Share This", "Tweet This", "Buzz This" bullshit - are shown alongside each post, and above all: it's not mandatory to use, or enforced any more than the RSS button. Perhaps instead of flamebait posts of "Apple are out to get us" media companies should be asking themselves "how did reading content online become so sucky"?

There's at least a little irony that Nik's own site has such a high proportion of its layout geometry devoted to non-content material: half as much width as the principal content is taken with syndication "bullshit", and the end of the article devotes a lot of vertical space to reciprocal links — his own site does not seem to value the reading experience emphatically above marketing value. But I agree with what he says; indeed, if he has felt the same need to sacrifice usability to visibility as the link baiters he so despises, that actually can only support his point.

The Google era, that which provided browsers with effective tools for finding the kind of content that reasonably competent web browsers were looking for, made web content an important repository of knowledge, one that could be weighed in value against the now-traditional content available in physical bookstores and libraries. This advance constitutes a fundamental increase in the usefulness, both intellectual and practical, of the sum of public human knowledge.

Against that, the Google era began with the technology and craft of both internet typography and layout lagging far behind that of print, in terms of supporting readability. And since then, the situation has become worse: the link-baiting publisher now values the published content only in drives up visibility, that is, both in attracting vistors to the site who are influenced by the sidebar content, to perform such actions as clicking on adverts, so earning per-click income, or in syndicating the URL via Twitter, so driving up the site's PageRank. Worse still, the competition that print publications face from online content has driven many publishers to make deep cuts into their editing and typesetting functions, leading to an easily observed decline in quality — a decline in standards that has impacted accuracy and must surely have impacted readability.

So the Google era makes it easier for readers find the kind of material they are looking for, but it has undermined the readability and accuracy that is then read. For most readers, most of the time, this is a better situation, but many kinds of reader, for whom accuracy is critical or whose sought information will demand close attention to the text, it may have become harder to find material that meets their needs. Publishers who maintain traditional editorial and typesetting standards have become fewer; the costs borne have become a badge of quality like the tail feathers of a peacock. Or, to put it another way, the needs of the many have been mat at the expense of the needs of an important few.

Innovations such as Safari Reader, together with good technical work that has been improving digital layout and typography, by raising the typesetting standards of web-distributed content, may make more visible the difference between well-edited and poorly edited content.

At least, that is my hope.