Ideal Line Lengths - a core usability issue

I happened to browse through one of the blogs today. The subject was pretty interesting, but there was no column separation whatsoever. The text runs from the extreme left to the right making the reading experience quite tiring. It is importance to understand the benefits of having a ideal line length for the content.

Well I am again comparing the print and the web. In print, be that magazines, books or newspapers the column width is maintained for comfortable reading. This has scientific reasons. At normal reading distances, your eyes can comfortably span an acute focus of only about 3 inches width. A 30-40 character per line is considered to be ideal in print layouts, so that you have a comfortable eye span focus.

In web, there is no fixed screen width. When the design is a fixed width layout, things are easier to control to a certain extent. But when you have a liquid layout, the alignment changes with the resolutions the user sets in his computer. Imagine a 1024 resolution with your content running from left to right! Not very interesting right?. A designer can control the width in a liquid layout using css. But its not foolproof.

The discussion about fixed vs. liquid layout has been going on for a long time with each on having their merits and shortcomings, with browser compatibility being one of the major concerns.
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/liquid/
http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2003/12/15/fixedorliquid.html

Lets be conscious of how we display our the content and make online reading a pleasant experience.