cline@dartvax.UUCP (Greg Cline) (04/26/85)
Can anyone offer pointers to articles/research proving that text that is left-justified and right-justified slows the reader down? The hypothesis is that uneven gaps between words slow down the mind. Greg Cline Graduate Computer and Information Science Dartmouth College Nathan Smith Building Hanover, NH 03755 uucp: decvax!dartvax!cline CSnet: cline@DARTMOUTH
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/29/85)
> Can anyone offer pointers to articles/research proving that > text that is left-justified and right-justified slows the > reader down? The hypothesis is that uneven gaps between > words slow down the mind. Note that "right justification" and "uneven gaps between words" are unrelated except on low-quality output devices. The last I heard on the right-justification war was a strong suspicion that the answer is the same as the one for the serif war: people read more quickly and accurately when the text follows the style they are most familiar with. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
rh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Randy Haskins) (06/13/85)
I would expect that right justification is bad because your mind keeps track of what line you are on in the text by noting the pattern of words and white space. The most conspicuous sort of white space is the one at the end of the line. If they are all the same, your mind has to work harder to keep track of where you are. I seem to notice that I lose my line more often when the text is RJ than otherwise. Perhaps people should test this theory with text that is RJ but not LJ (of course, it would take the mind a while to realize that it was getting clues from the left side.) -- Randwulf (Randy Haskins); Path= genrad!mit-eddie!rh