curts@orca.UUCP (07/10/84)
At a recent technical communications convention, I sat in on a seminar
about text readability. It was interesting to me and I agreed with most
of what was said up to the point where one "researcher" told us that
"nearly every reader he polled" preferred a particular manual style.
When someone in the audience asked about the methodology used in the
research, and we heard how the data was accumulated, I decided that the
guy's conclusion was a little suspect. So, I thought that I would ask
you folks in netland what you thought about the manual styles in question.
Both of the following groups of paragraphs say the same thing. However,
the first two paragraphs are "right-justified" and the latter paragraphs
are "ragged-right". Please look at these paragraphs and answer the
questions that follow my examples.
Style I (right-justified)
--------------------------
At a recent technical communications convention, I sat in on a seminar
about text readability. It was interesting to me and I agreed with most
of what was said up to the point where one "researcher" told us that
"nearly every reader he polled" preferred a particular manual style.
When someone in the audience asked about the methodology used in the
research, and we heard how the data was accumulated, I decided that the
guy's conculsion was a little suspect. So, I thought that I would ask
you folks in netland what you thought about the manual styles in question.
Style II (ragged-right)
--------------------------
At a recent technical communications convention, I sat in on a seminar
about text readability. It was interesting to me and I agreed with most
of what was said up to the point where one "researcher" told us that
"nearly every reader he polled" preferred a particular manual style.
When someone in the audience asked about the methodology used in the
research, and we heard how the data was accumulated, I decided that the
guy's conculsion was a little suspect. So, I thought that I would ask
you folks in netland what you thought about the manual styles in question.
----
Answers:
A. right-justified
B. ragged-right
C. no preference, can't decide, or don't know
Questions:
1. Which style looks better on your terminal?
2. Which style would make these paragraphs look better on the printed page?
3. Which style would be better for long articles on your terminal?
4. Which style would be better for long articles on the printed page?
5. Which style appears most often in the books that you read?
---------------
Please send your response to me by direct mail rather than to this newsgroup.
I will return a summary to those that both respond and so request.
Curt Stephens
Engineering Computing Systems
Tektronix, Inc.
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