Forum:Justified text


 * Also, in the interest of making pages look that bit neater, I'd like to also suggest here instead of making a new forum (which I will do depending on your responses) that we justify the pages, so that they all look more professional. It wasn't really an issue for me before, even though I did think it made them look a tad scruffy, but I think that now we have nothing round the sides and it's just that bit larger page wise, it is noticible that they look a bit off. I think we should add it to the CSS to have it justified, and then have a gadget as to whether or not to have it on for people who just don't like it, or those with severe dyslexia, which can make it difficult to read straight margins. -- GOTW '''User 15:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, there's a user preference ("justify paragraphs") for this, but I'm not really fond of turning it on by default. Justified text means text with uneven letter spacing, and uneven letter spacing means more eye strain when reading. It's best used when the overall design consists of multiple narrow columns, and we definitely don't have that on most pages. -- Porter21 (talk) 17:09, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I knew about that thanks Porter, and I have it enabled already, but I was talking about site wide implementation as it bugs me when I'm not signed in. I must admit that I see no real stark difference in the gaps between words, and I really don't think it is an issue but feel it should be an option to turn it off, not on. Here is a sample I whipped up - not trying to cheat anyone by choosing this section from NCR, it's just the first wordy article that came to mind.




 * As you can see for yourself, reading the first makes no difference (for me at least) and it looks markedly neater than unjustified. In the interest of making the site look neater and more professional, I feel very strongly this would be a good idea. You can tell because I normally back down if Porter disagrees with me ;) -- GOTW '''User 23:11, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Since this has already turned into a point, counter point discussion, I have moved it to its own forum thread for complete discussion. 20:23, 19 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Care to weigh in then GA? XD -- GOTW '''User 21:14, 19 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I will do soon, just more focused on other things at present. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 22:34, 19 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Okie-cokie -- GOTW '''User 13:42, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, you're forgetting that anons (which make up the majority of readers) do not get to choose since there are no user preferences or gadgets for them. So if we have to choose between a default which some people find harder to read and one which doesn't cause issues for anyone, I don't see the benefit in going for the former. And by the way, just because justified text doesn't cause issues for you (or me, for that matter) doesn't mean it's that way for everyone - an interesting article with some research can be found here (when reading the last bit, keep in mind that automatic word hyphenation isn't supported by all major browsers yet).

As for the "more professional" argument - let's take a look at the top 5 websites in terms of visits according to Quantcast (nb: "ragged-right" is the technical term for HTML's left alignment): I could keep going down the list but the outcome won't change. So I don't think the "more professional" argument holds much weight; next to no major websites use justified text alignment, and for good reason.
 * Google: Ragged-right alignment.
 * YouTube: Ragged-right alignment.
 * Facebook: Ragged-right alignment.
 * Twitter: Ragged-right alignment.
 * Yahoo: Ragged-right alignment.

Which leaves us with "it's neater". Well, that's personal preference. I seem to recall that the ratio of people who prefer ragged-right alignment to people who prefer justified text was usually about 2:1 in the polls I've seen, but I can't find one right now to back this up. That aside, personally I tend to prioritize usability over eyecandy. -- Porter21 (talk) 07:27, 24 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay, I think it's fair to say you win when I can't really argue against what you've said. And I already knew it might be more difficult for people with dyslexia, I already said that - I used to help seriously dyslexic children learn to read :) -- GOTW '''User 17:33, 24 June 2012 (UTC)


 * For me there are 2 things to this element to consider, page layout and usability. In regards to page layout, it does look very nice and neat with the text squared off and the reduction of white space. But, that does come at the expenses of usability and readability of the actual page content (which does affect me). So for these basic facts alone, I am very much of the same song sheet with Porter when it comes to usability over eye-candy. And I think this is one of the reasons why the option exists in the MediaWiki core code as a preference only (it wasn't something me or Porter added).


 * The "more professional" argument could be debated due to the fact that a lot printed literature is justified (works of fiction, novels, text books etc.). And I think this is where people get the idea of it being a professional standard. But, printed work is much more different than works published on the internet. Printed work uses much more complex measures to keep the work readable. Most of these measures, as yet, do not exist in the browsers rendering mechanics or have very limited support (such as soft-hyphens). Plus the algorithms used vary from browser to browser, meaning the results also vary in usability. This is why all the top content sites on the internet use ragged-right. So overall I am against this being implemented. User avatar tag.gifUser Avatar talk.png 15:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)