The Importance of 450 pixels

November 15th, 2007

So much of what goes on behind the scenes of developing and designing websites is typically never considered by people who end up visiting the websites that are designed. These types of things would fall into the category of “things you don’t know, that you don’t know.” The importance of 450 pixels is one of these things.

So 450 pixels, what is it all about?

It is a measurement that has, through trial and error come to be what is arguably considered the right width for a column of text typeset on the Internet. Big deal? Well consider that whenever you read anything your eyes are scanning from left to right on a page. When the eyes get to the furthest right point they quickly scan back to catch the next line of text. The longer the line of text horizontally, the quicker we introduce eye fatigue over longer passages of text. Eventually when you continue to lengthen lines of text the eyes have a difficult time catching the next line. Frustration sets in for the reader and they are gone.

Observe most books have moderately narrow column widths for their text, it is this principle in action. In print this has been going on since the time of Gutenberg and best practices have come to find that approximitely 60 characters, typeset at 12pt in size is a comfortable column width. This measurement in print, when translated to the Internet, results in approximately 450 pixels of screen real estate.

So, what does this mean for you? If you want to keep people reading your content, apply the rule. You may have the most fascinating content around, but if it is difficult to read no one will. You could be losing out on increasing your exposure. This minute aspect of user experience should matter because it is at the core of usability.

Did you know about the importance of 450 pixels?

If not, do you feel it is important enough for you to consider its implementation on your website?

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