Dan Luu on Twitter: "Another thing I wonder about is how much of this is just what people are used to. A commonly cited 1929 study finds 10 pt font & 3" lines to be optimal. This seems absurd (and AFAICT not consistent with what people find today). Is that just due to familiarity?… https://t.co/gDaAJjrr13"

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I hear people say that shorter lines = better, but when I check the primary sources, I find that they have no primary source or that longer lines are arguably better. Is there an actual study on this that studies reading "long" lines that finds that they're obviously worse?pic.twitter.com/zxWSJucVPT

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Dan Luu‏ @danluu Apr 9

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If you actually read the sources from the "well sourced" wikipedia page, you'll find that it's common that the longest line length tested = the highest reading speed. This is consistent with studies not linked from that page. http://www.makinggood.ac.nz/media/1266/ling_2006_fonts.pdf … https://web.archive.org/web/20150619221256/http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/72/LineLength.asp …

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Raphael‏ Wimmer‏‏ @RaphaelWimmer Apr 9

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Replying to @danluu

Are you sure? I have just sampled a few studies and the results seem to be all over the place. E.g. Beymer et al. (2005) Wide vs. Narrow Paragraphs: An Eye Tracking Analysis - condition B is the shorter paragraph. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/11555261_59.pdf …pic.twitter.com/s6zSGdeLXS

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Raphael‏ Wimmer‏‏ @RaphaelWimmer Apr 9

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Replying to @RaphaelWimmer @danluu

And the opposite result by Dyson and Haselgrove (2001). The influence of reading speed and line length on the effectiveness of reading from screen. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.108.4346&rep=rep1&type=pdf …pic.twitter.com/wtNqd5NR80

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Raphael‏ Wimmer‏‏ @RaphaelWimmer Apr 9

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Replying to @RaphaelWimmer @danluu

Then again, Bernard et al. (2003) "The Effects of Line Length on Children and Adults' Perceived and Actual Online Reading Performance" do not find any effect of line length. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/154193120304701112?casa_token=hVloXVzHHxMAAAAA:7KtyoslS5dx_GSyPySaMmODLoE1f3iVaGQvqnFgLcf9m93ZsUX4rWq5zfL2VcwZSKHVyLUTqpnEw …pic.twitter.com/5sZTQtiC5A

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Dan Luu‏ @danluu Apr 9

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Replying to @RaphaelWimmer

Sorry, should have said something like "most that I know of", but I was at the tweet length limit. I would consider the evidence on this extremely weak, but people have really strong opinions about this.

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Dan Luu‏ @danluu Apr 9

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Replying to @danluu @RaphaelWimmer

Other than not being able to find a study on line lengths I'd consider even moderately long, my biggest issue (aside from normal reproducibility problems) is that this seems likely to depend on screen (seems obv. and also possibly supported by results of print v. digital studies)

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Dan Luu‏ @danluu Apr 9

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Replying to @danluu @RaphaelWimmer

But none of the studies I've seen use a screen like a screen I'm likely to use today (I admit I haven't looked into this since maybe 2015 or so, it's possible there are some modern studies that actually do this).

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Dan Luu‏ @danluu Apr 9

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Replying to @danluu @RaphaelWimmer

Oh, another thing is I'd like to see for these studies is the distribution. Most studies report avg + sd or boxplot, which hides a lot when the distribution is unknown and may not be a normal distribution. But this was standard at the time and is still semi-standard now.

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Raphael‏ Wimmer‏‏ @RaphaelWimmer Apr 9

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Replying to @danluu

True. From a paper on input latency we'll publish next month: standard visualizations including violin plots hide important characteristics of latency distributions.pic.twitter.com/xDa8NeX8uP

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Dan Luu‏ @danluu Apr 9

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Replying to @RaphaelWimmer

Another thing I wonder about is how much of this is just what people are used to. A commonly cited 1929 study finds 10 pt font & 3" lines to be optimal. This seems absurd (and AFAICT not consistent with what people find today). Is that just due to familiarity?

2:15 PM - 9 Apr 2019

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