← Journal04 / 23

Layout

The Margin and the Message

·6 min in full, in the book·PagePerfect Journal

Also available as a typeset book

Advice to leave space on the page is usually sold with a number: white space raises comprehension by nearly 20 per cent.1 When Carl Myhill followed the number back to the paper it is credited to and wrote to its author, the reply was that the paper “has nothing to do with whitespace”.1 It is a study of older adults reading hypertext in Chinese.1 The one experiment we found that varied margins and measured comprehension had 19 students reading from a laptop, and what it reported was a trade the number leaves out.2 Readers of the margined pages answered more questions correctly and read somewhat more slowly, and line spacing made no difference to either.2 A second experiment varied the empty space around a message and measured how persuasive people found it, and a statement with space around it came across as a weaker opinion.3 In February we cited that second paper for the opposite conclusion.

The rest of this essay is in the book

It goes on to cover:

  • A paper about reading Chinese hypertext
  • What the 2004 margin study measured
  • Empty space and a weaker opinion
  • Grouping by proximity, and cognitive load
  • What Tinker reported about leading
  • What a wider margin costs in print
  • Set the margin from the binding and the page count

About the book

Notes

  1. Myhill 2021, Whole article, including the quoted reply from Professor Lin and the Galitz (2007, p. 158) citation chain; Chaparro et al. 2004, Registry entry carrying the verified reply from Professor Lin as quoted by Myhill; Lin 2004, Bibliographic record: title, author, Computers in Human Behavior 20(4), 2004; Fadeyev 2009, Article listing of 24 September 2009 and the author page. We did not read Lin’s paper for this edition; its subject is taken from its title, from Myhill’s account and from Lin’s own reply. The 24 participants aged 62 to 80 are Myhill’s description of it. Neither the 20 per cent nor the word white space appears in the paper, on Lin’s own statement. Evidence B: one credible study, or evidence with limits.
  2. Chaparro et al. 2004, Summary; Methods (Participants, Materials, Procedure); Results, Table 1, reading performance; Discussion; Chaparro et al. 2004, Archived article, Results section; OpenAlex record for Chaparro et al. 2004, Bibliographic record and abstract. Twenty students, 19 analysed, one session on a laptop, 800-word passages from college admission practice tests, eight questions each. Margins 10 mm against 2 mm; line spacing 5 mm against 4 mm. The standard deviations are large and the paper reports no percentage improvement; the 15 to 20 per cent is our arithmetic on the means (5.17 against 4.28 is 20.8 per cent; 5.06 against 4.58 is 10.5 per cent; the pooled means, 5.115 against 4.43, give 15.5 per cent). No print or book replication was found. Evidence B: one credible study, or evidence with limits.
  3. Kwan et al. 2017, Full abstract: seven studies; mediation by perceived message strength; the random-generation, source-credibility and cognitive-load moderators; Media Psychology 101 2017, Body text on reduced persuasiveness and on liking decreasing as empty space increases. We read the abstract and a summary of the work; the article itself is paywalled and we did not. The venue is the Journal of Consumer Research, not the Journal of Consumer Psychology as the February draft had it. The messages were statements and advertisements, not books, so the transfer to a page of running text is untested in either direction. Evidence B: one credible study, or evidence with limits.

Sources

  • Myhill, C. (2021). No, Lin (2004) did not discover that margins and white space increase comprehension by 20% - The Dangers of Secondary Referencing. LinkedIn, 30 July 2021. linkedin.com
  • Chaparro, B., Baker, J. R., Shaikh, A. D., Hull, S., & Brady, L. (2004). Reading Online Text: A Comparison of Four White Space Layouts. Usability News, 6(2). Software Usability Research Lab, Wichita State University. web.archive.org
  • Lin, D.-Y. M. (2004). Evaluating older adults' retention in hypertext perusal: impacts of presentation media as a function of text topology. Computers in Human Behavior, 20(4). doi.org
  • Fadeyev, D. (2009). 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines. Smashing Magazine, 24 September 2009. smashingmagazine.com
  • Chaparro, B. S., Baker, J. R., Shaikh, A. D., Hull, S. & Brady, L. (2004). Reading online text: a comparison of four white space layouts. Usability News, 6(2). web.archive.org
  • OpenAlex record for 'Reading Online Text: A Comparison of Four White Space Layouts' (2004). api.openalex.org
  • Kwan, C. M. C., Dai, X., & Wyer, R. S. Jr. (2017). Contextual Influences on Message Persuasion: The Effect of Empty Space. Journal of Consumer Research. doi.org
  • Media Psychology 101 (2017). When Less Is Not More: The Effect of Empty Space on Persuasion (summarising CUHK Business School's account of Dai Xianchi's work). mediapsychology101.com

Further reading