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0 pointsarrrg3y ago0 comments

The reason for this is readability. Long lines of text are empirically bad for readability, making it hard for readers to find the correct next line.

However, the line length Wikipedia picked seems to be a bad compromise. At around 120 characters per line it‘s double the recommend line length (60 characters).

If you look at newspapers, magazines and books you will see the 60 character rule of thumb adhered to pretty exactly and thoroughly. It‘s just a typographical best practice.

On the web and on wider maximized screens the issue is always the white space. Newspapers solve this issue with columns. However, that‘s not a realistic solution on the web (not so much for technical reasons, mostly because scrolling is fundamentally incompatible with columns).

0 comments

rascul3y ago

60 characters is way too short for comfort. Too much vertical movement makes it hard to keep track of the line I'm on. 120 is better but still too short in my opinion if the page is wide enough for longer lines.

mananaysiempre3y ago

> However, the line length Wikipedia picked seems to be a bad compromise. At around 120 characters per line it‘s double the recommend line length (60 characters).

Unfortunately, Wikipedia uses a lot of right-side floats, some of which are quite wide. They are also frequently referred as “on the right” in the main text, which can be quite jarring on mobile/minerva where they might be above or below.

I could imagine a breakpoint where those floats would turn into margin notes, but that sounds extraordinarily fiddly.

zozbot2343y ago

> mostly because scrolling is fundamentally incompatible with columns

How so? You just scroll horizontally rather than vertically. Even actual scrolls come in both vertical and horizontal (column-based) formats.

mananaysiempre3y ago

That is actually a nice idea (and I’ve seen designers’ personal pages that do do that), but would probably look too artsy on today’s web. Gestures on mobile are also quite married to the vertical direction, so unless you’re willing to switch directions depending on screen size (way too jarring) that’s going to be somewhat broken as well.

arrrgOP3y ago

Mouse wheels. That‘s the issue. They mostly scroll only vertically. Horizontal scrolling frequently is a massive pain for everyone involved.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsarrrg3y ago0 comments

The reason for this is readability. Long lines of text are empirically bad for readability, making it hard for readers to find the correct next line.

However, the line length Wikipedia picked seems to be a bad compromise. At around 120 characters per line it‘s double the recommend line length (60 characters).

If you look at newspapers, magazines and books you will see the 60 character rule of thumb adhered to pretty exactly and thoroughly. It‘s just a typographical best practice.

0 comments

rascul3y ago

mananaysiempre3y ago

> However, the line length Wikipedia picked seems to be a bad compromise. At around 120 characters per line it‘s double the recommend line length (60 characters).

I could imagine a breakpoint where those floats would turn into margin notes, but that sounds extraordinarily fiddly.

zozbot2343y ago

> mostly because scrolling is fundamentally incompatible with columns

How so? You just scroll horizontally rather than vertically. Even actual scrolls come in both vertical and horizontal (column-based) formats.

mananaysiempre3y ago

arrrgOP3y ago

Mouse wheels. That‘s the issue. They mostly scroll only vertically. Horizontal scrolling frequently is a massive pain for everyone involved.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse