Testing Web Text Readability
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Since my post about line length on the web got a bit of attention, much of it calling for more research, I figured we could help out with that a bit.
We've written up a brief reading comprehension test that can help us figure out if there are conclusions to be made about web text readability in different conditions. It's fast, it features a fun and quirky Cory Doctorow story, and it needs your input.
So head on over to the readability test and spend 10-15 mins to help us gather some great results. While you're at it, try to get everyone you know to take it as well, eh?
Once we've gotten a decent sample, we'll post the results here, so stay tuned.
Nice to see you testing your theories. I just went through the test and had a few thoughts about it.
The line length was uncomfortable, but not so much to be unreadable. The terminology of the piece made it difficult to comprehend at first and I found myself re-reading whole sections. Also, knowing it was a test of some sort, I forced myself to read it more carefully than I might have under other conditions. The questions themselves were about pivotal or repetitive portions of the text.
I can’t help but wonder if those things will skew your results.
Still, I’m sure you’ve thought about some of this and I’m interested to know what your testing criteria are. I certainly appreciate something simple that continues the conversation while its hot. :)
I also want to read more about this now.
I started the test but stopped. The long lines combined with the small line spacing were too much for me.
I believe, a bigger line spacing would have improved readability of the textmuch more, than shorter lines would.
So here’s food for another stufy ;-)
Of course i meant to write “study” not “stufy”.
PPS: the lines spacing of the text in these comments here is much better than the one from your test.
@Stefan: In the test, line length and line spacing were randomized for each participant. Other folks got shorter line lengths and taller heights, with several values in-between.
It’s too bad you didn’t finish, or we’d have been able to see how the combination impacted you!
I’m really interested in your results. In my book, Flexible Web Design, I recommend line lengths of 75 to 100 characters, based on all the research I could find regarding on-screen reading.
I, like Michael, am curious about what variables you have and have not accounted for. Do you calculate my default text size? Do you record whether I bump up the text size using browser text scaling or page zooming? (I didn’t, as I assumed you wanted me to not do this, but you might want to include that in your instructions.)
In any case, thanks for putting this together.
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