Translations:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Limiting content width/23/en

The primary reason is to improve readability of Wikimedia wiki pages. So perhaps the first question is: how can we know what the optimal width of the content area is? There are research-based recommendations regarding optimal line lengths for readability of text, so we should probably start there. But then again Wikimedia wiki articles are different from common articles or web pages in certain ways. They are unique both in how long they are and in the variability of layout from one article to the next. Both of these factors may lead to a larger than usual need for scanning and searching for content (rather than linear reading). Our design must take into account these distinctions. We need to therefore ask, are Wikimedia wiki pages unique enough to warrant a line-length different from what is generally recommended? Below we explain how we’ve arrived at our design recommendation for what the max-width should be.