Text Alignment in Web Design (Stop doing it wrong)

[@ryuu2890]

Your contents are amazing. I'm learning graphic design and your videos help a lot. I hope it'll reach more people. Thanks a lot!

[@aname206]

yo you’re channel is fire bro

[@kathleenquinn6864]

This was extremely helpful. Although in your takeaways at 5:18 - you have a typo - should’nt instead of shouldn’t. You seem to care about details so I thought I would share.

[@peterkornos8749]

alignment and typography is crucial for reading experience by people with dyslexia. If those are set incorrectly, I am not able to read, or if I am, I have to search next row again and again. Also if some paragraph is too long in row, I can not read it, it is just painful. Why I mention typography? Because some fonts are highly unreadable just because white spaces. And about right and left alignment. Some culture have to read opposite direction, therefore I think will be nice to take it also as opportunity how to accept, or focus to this while someone try to create any design to the east country or to address to them.

[@torb-no]

Justified alignment isn’t really recommended for print either and many typographers and graphic designers have been railing against it for decades. This is for many of the same reasons. It’s just bad for readability.

[@gregoryjones8014]

Coldplay Three Albums Have Text Alignments. On Parachutes The Right Alinement. A Rush Of Blood To The Head Centre Alinement. And X&Y Left Alinement.

[@Berlander93]

Great information, just when I needed it. Keep it up :)

[@erumabo]

Justify is also not recomended becasue, when every line looks the same, it's fairly easy for your eyes to drift and jump to the wrong line by mistake. Also, a uniform block of tect may seem professional, but quickly it becomes a boring wall. The APA standard was all about justify, but in version 6 or 7 they changed to start-align for that reason.

[@vojtaborsky]

love your work thanks a million!

[@WillowPt]

Thank you so much for producing this video!

[@vicentebrook]

You are just amazing ! Make more content 🙏

[@moochogusto]

I just went through the site I built for a client and switched all the paragraphs from center to left-aligned 😅

[@mikeolsen_me]

I think I like it enough to subscribe to more shit. Thank you. 😊

[@codephantom_]

Love your content keep it up bruh

[@BeenADrill]

Center alignment is way easier to read. I don't know what is wrong with your brain that makes it easier to distinguish lines that look exactly the same at the starting position from lines that are slightly (or greatly) varied. With center alignment, I know that if the line I'm reading ends short of the line below it, the line I am looking for next will be wider than the line I just read. The same goes for the other way around. If I see a line that ends further than the next one, I know to look for the next line closer to the middle. Each line is distinguishable from both sides. I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten into a loop of accidentally starting the same line over with left alignment, however. Sometimes this makes me jumble up the context of the line I'm currently reading, and have to parse the previous line for the beginning of the current sentence in order to comprehend it. Left alignment is even worse than right alignment. At least with right alignment I can attempt to memorize the horizontal position of the lines before I get to the part where they all smack into a wall and look the same. Your opinion is inherently wrong, (or evil if you prefer) because it is an opinion attempting to enforce itself as fact, not a fact. Don't tell people they're doing it wrong just because they're not doing it the way you like it. Left-aligned text is almost like communism in a way. Every line starts out the same, but they inevitably end up in different places before being terminated. Typical leftism. Justified alignment is the greatest text alignment sin of all. An absolute chaos caused by too much order. An absolute dictatorship of equality. Each line a series of worker drones like ants. The lines all look exactly the same. You must memorize the first words of the line you just read, the line you are reading, and the line you are about to read; just to keep track of where you were and see where you are going; every line, every ant navigating by thoroughly sniffing the ass of the one in front of it. Justified alignment is always looking over one's shoulder for the sneak behind you while simultaneously trying to keep an eye out for the bandit ahead. Justified alignment is the theocracy of a false god, a demiurge trying to enforce his order, and calling it justified while ignoring the chaos he is creating outside of himself. Surely every sane person wants to see his page burned; the spirits of his letters to be freed; the firmament of his book to be annexed to a deity more inclined toward free will. The illegibility of justified text is akin to attempting to understand the true name of Cthulhu. To look upon him is to go insane. So I suppose I'll leave a like on your video. At least it's not a text blurb carousel.

[@thewebsitearchitect]

Hi Robert, thanks for the comment and like, however Im going to have to disagree with you. You are flat out wrong to say that left alignment is inferior to center or right alignement. Theres a reason why 99% of websites stick to using left alignment. Which also explains how you so commonly have the issue of next not flowing to the next line smoothly. I understand your point about reading the same line again, but the unfamiliarity, poor reading speed, and bad user experience far outways any elimination of minor inconvenience of reading the start of a line a second time. You are right that my video is opinion as there aren't any studies to backup what I'm saying, other than very authoritative players in the UX space like the NN Group. I did appreciate your theatrical metaphor, it was entertaining to say the least.

[@BeenADrill]

@@thewebsitearchitect Well aren't we passive-aggressive? Familiarity with left-justified text based upon tradition and standards create a confirmation bias on this subject. Self-reported preferences aren't an indication of something's superior efficacy. If people read more things that were center-justified, they would have very little trouble reading it at the same speed. I suspect lovers of poetry would have very little trouble reading center-justified text. Perhaps the Nielsen Norman Group could do a targeted study upon this. If you were made to read primarily center-justified text from birth, you'd read it much faster than you read left-justified text right now. I'm asserting that it is simply easier to parse. These are just my opinions, and I won't cite any authoritative players in the UX space. If I were to do so, I'd actually produce a link with specificity. I'm not wrong, though. It will just most likely never be tested in any meaningful way. Excepting the chance that we happen upon a species of another planet that have come to prefer it. But that would still be an apples-to-oranges comparison unless they conquered us and treated us like guinea pigs. Riddle me this: Would the Japanese read text slower from top-to-bottom, right-to-left pre-colonialism than they presently read left-to-right, top-to-bottom post-colonialism? (Technically they now do both in different contexts, which would raise the question for me of whether this duality has slowed their reading of one, neither, or both, but that's a different subject.) If computers were developed first in a country that wrote from top-to-bottom, right-to-left, then overspread the world with this as the default method of text organization, do you suppose that you, having adopted that method of typing and reading for convenience, would somehow read slower? What about the generation that came after you? I did depreciate your tactful humorlessness. It was annoying and snooty to say the most of it. I hope your customers find this.

[@thewebsitearchitect]

@@BeenADrill I suppose its my fault I didn't make the scope of what I'm saying apparent, but this videos scope isnt designed to include any right-to-left style of reading. This video isnt an ultimate showdown between all the alignments on a Worldwide scope. Its simply about following (if you want to call it Latin style) UX standards to create designs that are familiar and easy to use for uses. I do wish the NN Group did a study on this that could show you are right that alignment reading performance is relative based on nurture, it is an interesting thought I had'nt thought of before.

[@irbis_rosh]

@@BeenADrill I think the most useful takeaway from your statement is to consider (reading) culture context of the end-user you design for. Whether a left, right or center aligning modus is preferred will be determined on how reading material and semiotics are consumed within the end-user's social context.

[@chillpwn1]

Damn this thread is awesome

[@peterkornos8749]

BTW, thank you for this tutorial.

[@tandolwakemlotana8662]

Legend 💥

[@jonaldpenpillo]

text-align: justify --- have big spaces between words. no solution exist yet.

[@gabepetersen4451]

Hi there, I sent you a message on your site. Any supporting evidence or metrics that you can back this up with?

[@thewebsitearchitect]

I looked everywhere for some for the making of this video and found nothing. Though, in my opinion, a study showing how left align text is X% faster read than a another alignment shouldn't be the deciding factor on if you should use X alignment over others. You should design your website in ways that is most familiar and easy to use for users, which in this case would be left alignment.

[@gocu_saiajeans]

Top!

[@juleonasefi5230]

"Subscribe for more s**t..." lol

[@ABCD-ez3fo]

Agreed

[@codemewel]

I subscribed for more shit sir😍

[@exclvsiv]

The sad irony that you've made a video and blog post about text alignment for accessibility, yet your whole article is condescending while also using thumbnails that call people idiots and morons. Not really in the accessible and inclusive spirit.

[@TheShmrsh]

Subscribe for new what lmao