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Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!keesan
From: keesan@bbncca.ARPA (Morris Keesan)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Readability
Message-ID: <493@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 18-Jan-84 13:15:39 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.493
Posted: Wed Jan 18 13:15:39 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jan-84 01:41:22 EST
References: <2298@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 19

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Re: justifying right margins.

    There was some research done on this some time ago, which was mentioned in
the Arpanet Human-Nets Digest.  Briefly, the results were that justifying right
margins appears not to improve readability, and can even impair readability.
Subjects tended to read as easily or more easily material with a ragged right
margin. 
    This matches my own experience, which is that the variation in spacing
necessary to achieve justification tends to interfere with the smooth flow of
the eye over the content.  This is especially true in this medium, where there
is no variable sizing of spaces. 

    "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
-- 
					Morris M. Keesan
					{decvax,linus,wjh12}!bbncca!keesan
					keesan @ BBN-UNIX.ARPA