WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: line length and myth of the fold

for

From: Karl Groves
Date: Apr 18, 2008 7:10AM


> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto:webaim-forum-
> <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Christophe Strobbe
> Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 8:34 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: [WebAIM] line length and myth of the fold
>
> Hi Karl,
>
> At 13:51 18/04/2008, Karl Groves wrote:
> > > I think something like the Jello Mold approach
> > > (...) is better - the page width (...)
> > > has both minimum and maximum widths to accommodate
> > > readability (not so narrow that things break and not so wide that
> it's
> > > difficult to read long lines of text).
> > >
> >
> >Not to totally derail this thread, but I'd like to point out that the
> belief
> >that long lines of text is bad is rather unfounded. I've read a
> number of
> >usability studies which have come to the conclusion that reading
> performance
> >(speed and accuracy) does not differ significantly between line
> lengths[1].
> >Some studies indicate there is a preference difference but I'm not
> convinced
> >that's significant enough evidence to avoid long lines of text because
> by
> >shortening lines of text you also run into issues with content being
> pushed
> >below the fold. In my experience observing users in the lab, having
> >important content placed below the fold is far more likely to cause
> >information to go unnoticed by users.
>
> I'd be very interested in the other studies you know, since line
> length is now in WCAG 2.0 (SC 1.4.8:
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-
> 20071211/complete.html#visual-audio-contrast-visual-presentation>).

I'll be sure to post them in the next day or so. I certainly wonder where
they came up with 80 characters and who did so.


>
> With regard to content above or below the fold, I thought that there
> was research debunking this myth. See for example the article at
> <http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of>;.
>

The issue is primarily in the idea that people may not know there is content
below the fold, primarily when the page "looks done" - in other words when
the design of the page gives the impression that everything is above the
fold. I once sat in on a study with a major government website where users
needed to interact with an interface that was designed in such a way that
gave the impression that everything they needed to work with was already
there. Almost every participant missed that important stuff was below the
fold.

Does that mean that we need to make sure everything is above the fold? No.
But what it does mean is that it needs to be readily apparent that there is
content below the fold. I think on a practical level, this means *avoiding*
that illusion of completeness. This is Gestalt psychology 101, really
(http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/g
estaltprinc.htm).

I think it bears mentioning that the Boxes and Arrows article you linked
above cites some automated click tracking study which tracked whether or not
people scrolled. Automated tools are no more suitable for Usability than
they are for Accessibility - actually less so. The idea that scrolling is
OK because people scroll means nothing. What matters is whether or not
people actually saw what they were looking for and were able to complete a
task successfully and efficiently. To use an analogy suitable for this
forum, think of this as saying some web page passed an accessibility check
merely because there were alt attributes on images. What matters is the
content of the alt attributes, not whether they exist - again, something no
automated tool can tell that.


Karl Groves


> Best regards,
>
> Christophe
>
>
> >1 - http://hubel.sfasu.edu/research/textmargin.html is just one of
> maybe 8
> >studies I know of.
> >
> >Karl Groves
>
>
> ---
> Please don't invite me to LinkedIn, Facebook, Quechup or other
> "social networks". You may have agreed to their "privacy policy", but
> I haven't.
>
> --
> Christophe Strobbe
> K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
> Research Group on Document Architectures
> Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
> B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
> BELGIUM
> tel: +32 16 32 85 51
> http://www.docarch.be/
>
>
> Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
>
>