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Comment by Thaxll | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why they did that, now we have empty space on the left and right, it's really useless, why is it better than using the full screen?

"Our second change introduces a maximum line width to our content on pages where reading is the focus, such as article pages and discussion pages. Research has shown that limiting the width can lead to better retention of the content itself, as well as a decrease in eye strain. "

This is bs.

So all documentation website should now have that max line widht to better retent the content?

Edit: maybe it's just me but any UI/UX you have used for the last 10years are really hard to change in a positive way.

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No it isn’t. There’s ample research showing that shorter lines are more readable.

Check out the sources on this page for more details: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length

I agree, their line width has been atrocious since the early days. It was as bad in 2005 as it is now. The font size on their primary topic page text on desktop is also too small.

Checking a well filled out topic page, something like George Washington, a typical line might be 160-190 or more characters across in the top section. In some places on the page it can reach to 210+ characters across. It isn't a very good reading experience at their present font size and at that width.

In the early days the lines would have wrapped earlier on a 4:3 monitor. Using a vertical tab bar fills in the extra space and improves the readability of most web pages on widescreen.

According to Dan Luu, none of the citations on that page actually support what it claims.

Amusingly, given the context, I haven't actually read any of those citations. However, he's pretty careful, so I take the claim seriously, though I'll ultimately withhold judgment. As far as I'm aware, no one has come back to point to a citation and show that it supports the result.

https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168

> So all documentation website should now have that max line widht to better retent the content?

Absolutely.

I'm all for clean and uncluttered UIs, but trying to read wikipedia pages on a 4k monitor (or even large laptop monitor) is a joke. The lines are WAY too wide for easy reading. My brain just stops halfway through the line

I mean, maybe I'm just ancient with broken eyes (31), but I can't imagine anyone being able to sit down and read a wikipedia article like an actual book with reasonable left-right width.

The research on line length is not new and it's certainly not BS. I'm sure that even you read better at 70 chars/line than 200.

Dan Luu has repeatedly failed to find any good sources for this claim: https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168.

Ok, but does anyone really want to read at hundreds of chars per line? Just look at the comments here. It's pretty clear that there is a widespread preference for fewer. This makes sense, since typesetters figured all of this out long before CSS existed.

You just moved the goalposts!

You cited research, then when pressed on it, gave up on actually citing any, and just appealed to people's preferences. If this is really about preferences, that's what you should've said, rather than making a fake claim to have scientific backing.

So make the window narrower or get a narrower screen if you don't want to see empty space. Readability is more important.

Why not leave it to the user? If they want narrower text, they can make their window narrower. If they want wider text, they can make their window wider. This design forces "narrow" as the one true way, leaving out users who prefer to use the whole monitor they paid for.

Readability is exactly why sites need to enforce a maximum chars/line. Don't ask your users to constantly resize their window just to read your content.

You seem to be agreeing with the parent and Wikipedia and the research on the subject.

I got a big screen specifically so that I can have multiple windows on my screen. Having a site decide to be in charge of sizing instead of allowing me to choose is user-hostile.

You're always in charge of your browser width and zoom. With the use of relative ems, a designer can accomplish a sane line length for any combination of settings.

Yes, all documentation websites should have a max line width. It baffles me when I see people argue against max width in any way. If you disagree with constricting max text width you should _never_ design an interface that humans use.

You haven't used a ultra widescreen monitor then. Reading Wikipedia (until today) on such screen was pretty hard, with sometimes a full paragraph on a single, long line. This change is much better.

As for the sidebar (which you don't talk about, I realize) it's very useful for non-English speakers: it's easy to switch from the local page to the English one, and I've used it quite a lot. For switching to other languages as well, when the local article is more knowledgeable than the English one

Why would you maximize window width on an ultra widescreen? That isn't much of a value proposition for (Western) text consumption.

I have a large, wide monitor, and want to use the whole thing. More and more, sites waste this width with whitespace. Yuck! Now, I have to scroll down to keep reading what should (and can) fit in the full window. Thanks, UX researchers! If I wanted to read a narrow sliver of text, I'd make my window narrow or browse on my phone.

That is easy to solve - just don't fullscreen your browser window. Set it to a reasonable width and the content will follow.

FWIW, Wikipedia allows you to add custom CSS and JS that are active as soon as you log in.

Who logs in to Wikipedia? I asked search engine about a term, it brings up a link to Wikipedia, I visit page, read content, then leave. I never even knew you could have an account, and assumed only people wanting to editors would even need an account.

There was a time when contributions were welcomed by all with trust in the community to weed anything without backup out. Those days are long behind us.

> why is it better than using the full screen?

Are you saying you only have one window open at a time?

On a laptop typically I'd only have one window 'open?' maximised at a time. It allows focus. I'm a big fan of Gnome3 for this.

If coding then an additional monitor can help, the additional monitor multi-window to support the main focus.

If writing, then one screen and paper and pencil to sketch thoughts.

If diagramming/flowcharting, switch desk or stand up and use a whiteboard, reduce over multiple pieces of A3, then the finished result should be refined enough to iron edges out to formalise in Dia or Visio. I also prefer pencils over pens, have a box of multiple colour pens, crayons too, bunch of sticky notes not for the screen but supporting paper-based thoughts, masking tape for putting things together. And this is me working by myself.

We all have our use cases and it's rarely one size fits all.

For wikipedia - why not default to whatever's deemed best for most, but have a small toggle button for 'old'.

Modern operating systems only give you one mouse cursor and one focus at a time. What are you doing in the other windows when you are trying to read wikipedia?

Many people including me use the browser maximised all the time.

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