On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 08:29:06AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Craig Sanders (cas@taz.net.au):
well formatted paragraphs are both easy and enjoyable to read - i.e. readable. bizarrely formatted paras with randomly strewn line-feeds and semi-colons are neither.
Just in case the point was unclear: 'Readability' relates to the content.
i understood your point perfectly well. i just didn't agree with it, and you provided no actual evidence as to why i should change my mind.
If you're talking about presentation issues of any sort, including paragraph formatting, pagination, etc., then you are actually discussing legibility -- in contrast to readability.
unless you can back that up with some references that unequivocally support your contention, i'll have to classify that as mere opinion. opposite to but equally as valid as mine, but still just opinion. humpty yourself. [...later.... ] actually, it seems your opinion is much less correct than mine. in a google search for 'legibility vs readability', the first seven results (not cherry-picked) agree with me. i didn't bother reading further than that. http://michalisavraam.org/2009/05/readability-vs-legibility/ http://www.mightyfinegraphics.com/cg/typography.html http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/typographic-readability-and-legibilit... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legibility http://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-4/fine-typography/legi... http://smad.jmu.edu/shen/webtype/read.html http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/display-text-type/ they all say something along the lines of what the wikipedia article on Legibility says: "Legibility is the ease with which a reader can recognize individual characters in text. [...] Readability is the ease with which a reader can recognize words, sentences, and paragraphs. [...] Other typographic factors that affect readability include font choice, point size, kerning, tracking, line length, leading, and justification." the vanseodesign.com page also says: "Readability applies to the overall reading experience. It's macro-typography and it's about making type aesthetically pleasing in order to make it more inviting to read. Imagine you land on a web page of text that's been formatted as one very long paragraph with no headings or subheadings. It's just one long block of text. How inviting would it be to read? Are you going to attempt to find out? Probably not. The only way to know if you want to read that block of text is to begin reading it and unless the first sentence or two is extremely compelling you'll probably move on to another page. You skip reading it because the type design wasn't readable. Had the type been separated into several paragraphs, had there been a main page heading and subheadings giving clues about the content, had there been images, or some bulleted lists, the text would have been much more inviting to read. That's readability. You design your type so it looks more interesting. You make certain parts of the type stand out to attract attention to them and let those parts provide a way into the full body of the text." which was exactly the point i was making with regard to Rohan's emails, although with a concern for other elements of design than just paragraph formatting. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>