[Sigia-l] text justification

[Pabini Gabriel-Petit]

Hi Morry

You asked: Anyone have any data showing increased readability on the Web
based on text justification (left, right, etc.).

I don't have any hard data at hand, but know the answer to your question if
that will help.

In the West, left-aligned text is easiest to read, because that's what
everyone is accustomed to. Right-aligned text is hard to read because of the
ragged left margin, which messes up our ability to scan text and visually
track lines of text. Justified text is hard to read on-screen, because of
the extra spaces justification causes to appear between words. (I'm not
crazy about it in print either, but most printed materials are justified.)
Centered text is always hard to read and should generally be avoided--though
a single, short text string might be okay. For example, you might use a
short figure caption that's centered above or below an image. Centered text
generally looks amateurish. Hope this helps.

Pabini
_________________________________

Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Principal & User Experience Architect
Spirit Softworks
www.spiritsoftworks.com