Improve readability of your content by using left-justified text instead of centered text.
It’s easier and faster to read text that doesn’t force the reader to search for the beginning of each line.
This is one of those articles I keep around to share with clients who request centered text.
I figure it’s time to bookmark it somewhere and also today was a good day for it to show up in my Twitter feed because I have a call with a client on this exact subject later today.
Glad it will help you out with your client call today, Amanda!
Thanks for writing it. I’m glad I finally put it somewhere where I can find it.
I don’t agree. I’ve seen this passed around a few times and wondered about your thoughts. CC @redcrew. A small writeup here: elod.in/centered-and-f…
User testing I’ve done tends to support not centering text, so I recommend clients not do it. If that changes, and I start seeing significant numbers of users who are either fine with it or specifically request it, then I’d change that recommendation.
Those users can’t be blind screen readers arguing for it though, because in this particular case they’re not the affected users.
* blind screen reader users.
What sort of user testing have you done, if you don’t mind me asking?
For this specific recommendation, users with some forms of dyslexia. I’ll see if I can get permission to publish because it wasn’t something I specifically asked for at the time.
That’s interesting. I’d love to see it!
I’ll see what I can do. Also, if you have user data from affected users which contradicts this recommendation, would also love to see that.