Text formatting.

  • Gabriel A. Zorrilla
    Participant

    Ive downloaded t he preview (hell of a game!) and I dont understand why the text is not justified. Its just plain ugly and i think that ruins this great book.

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  • reptile2k1
    Participant

    I love you for that remark!

    Really!

    I hate text that is not justified and my SO even goes as far as to refuse to read non-justified texts… If possible.

    YOU ARE NOT ALONE

    reptile, layoutomancer

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  • carsten
    Participant

    I knew you would answer to this posting, reptile! 😉

    It’s funny. There are two kinds of people: those who hate justified texts and those who hat not justified texts. usabilitywise texts that are not justified tend to be easier to read.
    but i agree, when it comes to books they simply look nicer when the text is justified.

    cheers
    carsten

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  • reptile2k1
    Participant

    “usabilitywise texts that are not justified tend to be easier to read.”

    Dear Carsten,

    Psychologicallywise I have to disagree. 😀
    With justified texts the spaces within the same line always have the same distance, while distances between words over different lines are not the same. This helps the eye identify the “current line” better, making it not jump off the track that often. Based on the eyes’ habit of “Saccadensprünge” (sorry, don’t know the english word).
    A text with ´justified alignment and proper sub-paragraph intending is perfect to read!

    😀

    reptile

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  • carsten
    Participant

    Err, sorry, but where do you think usability stuff like that comes from? psychology: if i may quote:

    “Set type intended for extended reading flush left, and ragged right. Readability is decreased by non-uniform spacing between words and text that starts irregularly.”

    Correct me if i am wrong, but with justified text the spaces between words are *not* the same! do you know how justification was done by good ol’ gutenberg?

    cheers,
    cars

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  • carsten
    Participant

    sorry, forgot to mention where i quoted from. it’s from the heuristics we work with. can find the complete bibliographical reference if you want to. 😉

    cars

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  • carsten
    Participant

    forget one of my remarks above… I re-read your posting and saw that I was a bit to quick and misunderstood you.

    But still, that *is* according to some authors the problem: that the distance between words is not the same. maybe it’s easier to find the current line but it’s harder to recognise word groups. to prevent the eye from “loosing” the line it is necessary to provide enough leading.
    But anyway, I just found out that this is one of the issues experts do not agree upon. So, do as you like. 😉

    This is getting too far away from UA, so maybe we should (if at all) continue this little discussion via email.
    Just wanted to point out that usabilitologists (;-)) don’t just make this stuff up.

    cheers,
    cars

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  • Gabriel A. Zorrilla
    Participant

    But when you justify text, in each line, the space is equally distributed. So, it may vary from line to line (according the numbers of words each line has) but not in the same line.

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