The long and the short of learning

Abstract

Books, newspapers, and magazines have lines of text no more than five or six inches wide. The rationale behind the line lengths is simple: The shorter the line, the easier it is to read. A recent IBM study has expanded upon that finding, revealing that shorter line lengths also makes information easier to retain. IBM Learning partnered with scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San José, California, to study the physiological effects of line lengths, paragraph depth, font size, and line spacing on computer screen readability. In this experiment, IBM used a tiny camera to track the eyegazes of users to study reading behavior using wide and narrow paragraphs. The web page material in this experiment contained identical text; the only difference was width of the paragraphs. Their findings may come in handy when designing training materials. Learning is, after all, about how well one remembers content. If line length impacts a reader's ability to retain the material read, trainers will need to change the way they design their material, especially their e-learning programs.