The language of the Web 199
times must have presented similar difficulties). Scrolling down is
bound to interfere with our ability to perceive, attend to, assimilate,
and remember text. Scrolling sideways is even worse: a browser that
does not offer a word-wrap facility may present line lengths of 150
characters or more, with reading continuity very difficult to main-
tain between successive lines.^5 Similarly, it is common to experience
difficulty when we encounter screens filled with unbroken text in
a single typeface, or screens where the informationis typograph-
ically comple xor fragmented, forbidding easy assimilation of the
content. And any author who has tried to put text from a previously
published book on the Web knows that it does not translate onto
the screen without fresh thought being given to layout and design.^6
Research is needed to establish what the chief factors are, as we
transfer our psycholinguistic ability from a paper to an electronic
medium. For not everything is easily transferrable, and alternative
means need to be devised to convey the contrasts that were ex-
pressed through the traditional medium of print. For example, the
range of typefaces we are likely to find on the Web is only a tiny
proportion of the tens of thousands available in the real world. Al-
though there is no limit in principle, and many typographically in-
novativesitesexist,thegeneralpracticeisattimesboringlyuniform,
with unknown numbers of Web newcomers believing that elec-
tronic life is visible only through Times New Roman spectacles. As
RogerPringputsit,arguingforkeepingtypographicoptionsopen:^7
Can you imagine a world with only one typeface to serve as the
vehicle for all communication. How content would you be to see
the same face on your supermarket loyalty card as on a wedding
invitation?... The way computers work makes it easy to use the
same group of faces over and over.Many users do take the easy option, with the result that innumer-
able sites present their wares to the reader with the same bland,
monochrome look.
(^5) See the examples in Pring (1999: 20).
(^6) The principles are now the focus of several books and conferences: see Pring (1999).
(^7) Pring (1999: 176).