RE: Advice on starting out; dealing with employers

["Dan Goldstein" <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com>]

I'm no expert on learning and reading disabilities, but CogniBeat (an
advocacy site for parents of dyslexic children) says: "Double-spacing
after periods has the effect of creating vertical rivers of white space
within the text. This so-called 'river effect' makes it hard for a
dyslexic reader to find where sentences start and end. Single-spacing
after periods, on the other hand, offers just the right amount of space
between sentences."

On the other hand, the W3C guidelines recommend the exact opposite.

Anyone know of a research reference for this question? Usability for
dyslexic readers is a serious issue in our line of work, and it would be
good to have a recent reference point.


-----Original Message-----
From: Carter Campbell
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 12:36 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Advice on starting out; dealing with employers

Man, I can't believe that this keeps rearing its ugly head.  I am not 
going to try to start this same tired old fuss-session up again (well, I

guess I am, but only quickly), but other than the result being "pretty" 
and that it's "just not cricket", do you think there might be another 
reason why you might want two spaces after a period instead of one?

I would think that it would depend on your audience and not on your own 
delicate sense of style.  There are groups of people with learning and 
reading disabilities (such as dyslexics) that find it difficult to read 
through or scan a document that looks as if it is rammed altogether.  
Since many of these people are taught to read patterns, they will look 
for a larger space between sentences to give them visual cues...




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