The effect is known as “rivers of white” and it can make reading difficult, if not impossible. When they do, readers may perceive highly distracting white patterns flowing through the page that can become more prominent than the text itself. The problem for dyslexic people occurs because large gaps between words are more likely to line up above one another than are the smaller gaps typical of more evenly spaced text. (In the UK, dyslexia affects around 10% of the population, some 4% of them severely.) Rivers of white For people with certain disabilities such as dyslexia the problems can be serious justification can interfere with their ability to understand the text at all. With simple justified text (as seen in the right-hand column above) the uneven variation in spacing between words makes the text more difficult to read because, instead of moving smoothly along the line, the eye has to jump from word to word. Because of all these factors the left-hand column is easier to read. In addition, the text in the right-hand column contains another common problem, namely double spaces between sentences (the subject of the extract). But the left-hand column also employs letter spacing and letter (or glyph) resizing as well as hyphenation to distribute the text more evenly along each line. The technical differences between the two examplesīoth examples use word spacing to achieve straight column edges on each side. The text in the first column is evenly spaced but the text in the second column has large gaps between words. The image below shows two versions of an extract from Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style.
The CSS3 working draft offers some intriguing options for the future, but limited browser support remains a problem. But it may be some time before it can be made to work as well in web pages due in part to the limitations of current browsers. However, handled with care, and with the aid of the right software, it can work well in PDF-based content. Justified text used inappropriately can cause serious readability problems. 13 June 2009 | Ted Page Justified text and readability
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