JavaScript Justifies Everything (well, text anyway)

carlos.bueno.org

18 points·aristus··9 comments

It doesn't hyphenate correctly. I get the word 'columns' hyphenated like this: 'colu-mns' and 'manuscript' as 'manuscri-pt'. A nice idea, but this implementation is unusable. Justification without correct hyphenation is just a non-starter.

The source for it is right here: http://github.com/aristus/sweet-justice

Needs some Knuth: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113445055/abstrac...

(Edit: bummer. A quick glance through the code at the following link leads me to believe it doesn't actually do hyphenation, though I may be wrong.)

http://ajaxian.com/archives/tex-line-breaking-algorithm-in-j...

Fascinating. I've always fully justified the text on the sites I work on. But I've never compared samples side-by-side as demonstrated on this site. I was immediately struck by how much easier the "ragged right" version is to read. Something about fully justified text seems to slow me down.

The line length is very small here, so it may be a pathological case IMHO.

Your hunch is supported by research: http://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/research-about-ragg...

It would be cool to integrate that to Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/)

Readability's job is to make text easier to read, not harder. Fully justified text is harder to read and has negative effects on retention.

http://www.adamsdrafting.com/2007/05/03/justified-text-versu...

Study 1: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120024982/abstrac...

Study 2: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD...

The UK government also gives this advice in a style guide:

Avoid fully-justified text - the 'ragged' right edge can particularly help people with dyslexia in keeping reading position.

It drives me nuts that iBooks or the Kindle doesn't use ragged right. Fully justified text has been demonstrated to be harder to read by multiple studies (though is arguably acceptable aesthetically for use in thin columns): http://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/research-about-ragg...

I guess my point is.. don't be quick to jump on a bandwagon in order to achieve an aesthetic ideal at the cost of readability.

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