Quick poll on readability issues

[astolat]

Okay, so I have been fighting with the new website a bit, and so far I have only been able to get one of two things to work for the individual stories, either centering or variable width. That is -- originally I wanted to make it so that the text would have a maximum width so it wouldn't go sprawling all across the browser, but I wanted to leave it

Comments

[astolat]

That's basically option number 3, letting the text go wide/narrow with the browser window -- yeah, I'd definitely keep margins, even if I went with that option. I just can't seem to get it to center the block of text in the page *plus* restrict the maximum width. For myself, I kind of hate having to constantly resize my browser window to make text fit into a conveniently-readable width, which is why I like the max-width restriction myself, but it does look kind of weird to have it all on the left-hand side.

[malnpudl]

It's somewhat tangentially related to your question so I don't know if it will interest you, but Jakob Neilsen, the guru of online useability, has some guidelines and links here, including a couple about readability, fonts and text formatting, and letting the user control as much as possible about what they see on screen.

Personally, I dislike narrow blocks of text and would very much prefer that the text be allowed to spread across nearly the full width of my browser window.

I've also got crappy eyesight, so it's absolutely essential to me that I be able to control the font size -- something that's rarely a problem in Netscape but often problematic in IE. JMO, and all that.

[maryavatar]

I had a similar problem with some of the boxes on my portfolio (I'm doing a web design class). I had a variable width box that looked very strange at 800x600, and a fixed width box that refused to centre. I set the variable width box as a percentage instead of a pixel size, and I can't remember off-hand how I solved the cetering problem on the copyright box, but I got some handy tips here.

[maryavatar]

Er, sorry, that was the wrong link. I think the correct one is filtered. Hang on, I'll go code-hunting.

[maryavatar]

I can't guarantee this will work, but give this a try.

width: 80%;
position: relative;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
width: 60%;
text-align: left;

[maryavatar]

Only, y'know, with only one width value.

[godofwine]

I don't suppose you could put the text in a table and center it that way?

[corinna_5]

I'm all for left-justifying, but if you figure out that variable center column thing, let me know for my non-fannish blog.

Looking at the current site but not the code, my first suggestion would be to cheat the left margin padding - that would give you more of the space from the left side of the browser that I think you'd want aesthetically, without having to mung about with the CSS more.

I can try asking around at work if you have your heart set on the center column, though.