Small paragraphs vs single space?

[joer80]

Newspapers use single spacing for their articles. Would you prefer this for newspaper websites? Or would you prefer the way cnn and other major news outlets do a ton of small paragraphs? I can not seem to find anyone that does single spacing on the internet although my company is recommending it for our site. (www.texarkanagazette.com) Let me know what you think. Thanks!

[dharrison]

Hi joer80

Writing online is a totally different concept compared to writing on paper, so no I wouldn't prefer to read single spacing on a website. The fact that it is harder to read text online is as good a reason as any.

Small paragraphs are more suitable for web content as they are easier to scan.

To prove what I mean, just sit back and read that first paragraph on the link you provided. My record is about 6 lines before my eyes start to cross. The "read more" page looks just too cramped for me to be able to read through without obtaining eyestrain.

HTH

[MaineWeb]

I agree with dharrison completely. Give me short paragraphs and plenty of space or I usually don't bother with it, even if it sounds interesting.

[bj]

Usability experts recommend using a line height of 1.4, which is somewhat between the single space and double space of old. I also choose to pad top/bottom of my paragraphs a bit to visually separate them from each other.

And yes, most web writing is shorter and punchier, though there are exceptions, like in the area of political analysis. Take a look around the sites in your field which are getting good Google Play and see what they're doing. Then make a decision based on your goals, your content, who your audience is, and your page's look and feel.

[Zombie Master]

Studies show visitors to a website scan the pages rather than read them. Their eyes go down the page and stop on headings, etc.

Almost universal is the dislike of large blocks of text. They just aren't read.

[Drake]

I tried reading an article on that site suggested and the line-height is a HUGE turnoff. It's very difficult to read, and if I were just browsing I would probably just wander off to another news site.

Also, on the main page of the site, there is a significant disparity between the text size and spacing of the article content, and the area just below it with a bullet list of local headlines. I think the fact that the bulleted headlines are such a larger font, and have correct white space, it makes the article text seem even more tight.

If you are going to do the newspaper layout look online (versus small paragraphs), make sure you compensate your viewers with enough white space between the lines (aka: increase the line height).

[acornwebworks]

Whoa!

I just looked at Texarkana Gazette News, Classifieds: Jobs, Cars, Real Estate and Weather and was COMPLETELY turned off by the front article: "Business center offers some space". I sure has heck didn't click to read further. Not because I wasn't interested (well, I wasn't) but because my eyes couldn't handle the strain of reading any further.

Why on earth would your company recommend that??

It was AWFUL!! (And tell your folks that I love to read.)

Tell them to check out the national award-winning Lawrence Journal-World Online at, for example, LJWorld.com / Today's news to see how it SHOULD be done.

My husband and I subscribe to the print version of the Journal-World, but we still read the online version ebacuse it's...well...readable!

[CraigAllen]

May I also say that in reading the article about the train vs. logging truck, I couldn't help but notice the justification. By having the text justified, there are big spaces between words that to me stand out much more on the web than in print. The fact that I noticed the spaces bothers me.

Just my .02!

[Clarrie]

Originally Posted by CraigAllen

May I also say that in reading the article about the train vs. logging truck, I couldn't help but notice the justification. By having the text justified, there are big spaces between words that to me stand out much more on the web than in print. The fact that I noticed the spaces bothers me.

Just my .02!

It depends a bit on the overall design - the more text, the greater the spacing generally required for easier reading. In general, for text I like to use a higher line spacing than many anyway - 1.3 is my normal starting point.

One of our sites (Find New EU Directives and Legislation : European Law Monitor) is a legal site with fairly long information documents (and yes, people DO read long documents if the content is important to them - in my experience attention span is directly linked to interest ). For these pages, the line spacing is 1.5 and justified, which opens the word spacing a little and makes it quite easy to read. We also use a reasonably significant gap between paragraphs; this also helps readability.

[DrTandem1]

Another related issue, that is far more important is the length of the line. If the text fills the monitor's width, then it is almost impossible to read, if it is more that one line. Notice that newspapers have columns.

Not that a web page should have columns. The point is that a reader can only follow so far from right to left before losing track of where the next line begins.

[noel_x99]

Everybody mentioned some great points here. Line lengths, readability on screen, justification, shorter paragraphs, line spacing. All of these are so important.

The page density is another issue. White space is not a bad thing. These articles appear so dense that even just looking at the page makes me not want to "work" at reading it. It's different in print work. People read easier on paper than screen. Even there, the industry knows how many characters should be on a line and when text needs divided into columns.

I doubt that a newspaper has the time/budget to rewrite articles for the web to make the articles "shorter and punchier" as BJ mentioned. Sub headings between some of the paragraphs might be a good idea.

But assuming you are just dumping articles in as they appear in print, use white space between lines and a paragraphs to make the best experience for the user.

Newspapers online aren't newspapers in print.

[ccpadmin]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but font choice/line spacing/white space will improve readability.

Verdana is a better choice than Tahoma. It is more airy and allows the words to be read without eye strain. Tahoma at small sizes & also bolded can be a strain. Not sure how much control you have over that.

Also increase that line spacing. Its way too tight.

White spacing can also increase readability. That would be space between elements in the design.

** Adding to DrTandem's comment about columns you can use padding to create "gutters". I believe thats the space between columns.

[joer80]

Thank you for your suggestions. I set the line to 1.4 and did a find and replace on the content to find <br /> and replace with <br /><br /> which gives me an extra space inbetween the chunks of text. Looks much better. Thanks for your help!