Print vs online

This being a course about issues in publication and design, it's inevitable that I'd be posting on here about the differences between online and print publishing—especially since a lot of print publications are making the move to the internet, phones and tablet devices. Sometimes people will want to read what you've written in hard-copy rather than online (or both). Because this is such a big subject, I'm not going to write an entire blog post on it- I'll just be looking at the issues of eye fatigue and partial page view.

1. Eye fatigue.

This is one of the major problems that I have when sitting at a computer for an extended period of time. If I want to read a story, article or document online that's more than a few pages long I get tired eyes and a headache. That's because when we look at a computer screen (or one on a mobile phone,  iPod or other tablet type) it projects light directly into our eyes—no wonder they get tired and sore! In contrast, when you're looking at a piece of paper you only get reflected light so your eyes don't get as tired. In fact, that's why I like reading eBooks on my Kindle instead of on the computer or an iPad.
Something else to keep in mind is that a computer screen refreshes itself really quickly (just like a TV), so your eyes are constantly having to adjust. I didn't notice this until I saw some computer screens in the background of the Channel 10 news. It seems as though TV cameras pick up on this flickering, so have a look and see the next time they show a computer on TV.

So, if you're writing for print you can afford to put long blocks of text on a page (although using white space and design is essential to stop the reader from getting bored and wandering off). However if you're putting text online, make sure to break it up with pictures and white space.

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2. Partial page view

Depending on what your screen size and resolution is, you may not be able to read this sentence without scrolling down the page. This is another problem with putting things online. When you have a piece of paper you generally skim-read from the top-left to bottom right with your eyes picking up anything interesting on the way (unless you are from somewhere where reading is done from right to left). You can also see how big the page is and get an idea of how much text there is for you to look at.

Unfortunately this doesn't work when you transfer written information to an online format. A printed page will most likely have a vertical page layout whilst a computer screen has a horizontal one. This means that if you don't put the most important information at the top of your screen, readers aren't going to be able to easily find it. That's why it's a good idea to use a table of contents or menu if you're going to put a lot of text on one screen, or use internal links (like I'm doing in this post). It is of course better make lots of smaller pages and then use the menu/sitemap to link to them. Oh, and finally, don't think that reducing font sizes will help. Making your fonts smaller will make it harder for readers, and some of them will have default font settings for their web browser which will confuse your website!

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If you want to look at more problems and get tips on how to fix them, have a look at Looking Good In Print. This book will help you to make sure your readers have the best reading experience no matter which publishing format they choose.

Image source: Computer eye
Image source: Book and computer
Source: Parker, Roger C 2003, Looking Good In Print, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale Arizona