

UseTheSource: O'Reilly book giveaway - jgrahamc
http://news.usethesource.com/item?id=243

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michael_dorfman
Great idea. I hope this helps UseTheSource get some traction.

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jgrahamc
Thanks. It was really kind of O'Reilly to suggest this.

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wwortiz
Not really on topic but:

Insanely cool google custom search implementation :)

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csmeder
I agree, however, one suggestion would be to make content all left aligned. UX
studies show the eye can scan much faster if everything is left aligned.

 _Most people find themselves using center alignment for these things. Why?
The reason is three-fold:

It feels comfortable. It’s a way to make these elements “stand out,” or to
draw attention to them. It’s what everyone else is doing. Yes, center
alignment does feel comfortable. And quite frankly, it will be more than a
mite uncomfortable to break away from using it. But it interrupts the flow of
people who are scanning when their eye has to jump to a section in the middle
of the page. As a matter of fact, your readers may be intentionally skipping
over those center-aligned headings and subheadings that we all know are such
an integral part of web site copy. GASP!

Here’s a suggestion. Instead of using center alignment to make your heading,
subheadings, etc. stand out, align them to the left and use a larger and
bolder font size for them. Using a different color is also a consideration,
but use caution. Colored text can also cause readability issues.

Sure, everyone else is center aligning like crazy. That means a lot of web
sites are difficult to read and causing unnecessary eyestrain on their poor
visitors. But by left aligning your text, you’ll keep your web site visitors
blissfully reading and sticking around, which is exactly where you want them._

\-- [http://www.learntodoitright.com/2009/01/14/how-text-
alignmen...](http://www.learntodoitright.com/2009/01/14/how-text-alignment-
affects-online-readability/)

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jgrahamc
Done

