The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News
A. Dawn Shaikh, from the WSA, have studying the effect of line length on reading online news.
This study examined the effects of line length on reading speed, comprehension, and user satisfaction of online news articles. Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed. No effects of line length were found for comprehension or satisfaction, however, users indicated a strong preference for either the short or long line lengths.
While designing a blog, this is one of the consideration that it's interesting to take, which is the readability of the blog. Certainly newspaper's websites are different from blogs, but it's interesting to know which gives your blog a better readability.
I didn't see blogs with 35 cpl, but i think that most of them are between 55 and 75, and it's rarely to see bloggers using a large presentation with 95 cpl. What is interesting with 95cpl is the more content you have the more opportunities to advertise and use ads on your blog.
What's amazing in the study is that the reading speed (in words per minute) is the highest one with 95cpl. The study have been done with just 20 college students, all of them had 20/40 or better unaided or corrected vision. Participants reported visiting websites daily, had experience reading online, and were regular users of the Internet.
