How to make your text look good

I'm in love with this blog called Shady Characters by Keith Houston.  It delves into the history of punctuation marks, and the result is drama, political intruige, and passion.  Think The Da Vinci Code for the ampersand.

One of Houston's more recent posts was on the pilcrow: ¶.  Originally, paragraphs weren't marked with white space on a page; they were marked with the pilcrow.  After a while, as we all know, paragraphs were marked with a new line of text and an indent.  Now, on the web, paragraphs are marked with a double line break, but not indent.  Have we lost something here?  That's the assumption of Nathan Ford on his blog Art Equals Work.  He gives tips on easily adding indentation to your paragraph breaks on a web page, and even made a handy "bookmarklet" to show you what your site would look like if you followed his advice.  Justin Stach has taken it a step further and created a bookmarklet that replaces your paragraph breaks with pilcrows.  I usually think older is better, so let's try it out.

Here's a recent blog post on my frustrations with Comcast:

Here it is with indentation instead of double breaks:

Here it is with pilcrows, as the monks intended:

Does it look cool?  Yes.  Is it more readable?  No.

Several years ago, I gave a lecture on the basics of visual design, and how these rules apply to web design.  (Hint: most web designers aren't even aware of these rules, to say nothing of compliance.)  One of the most important principles of visual design, especially with text, is white space.  White space makes a huge difference in readability and even attractiveness of the text.  Yes, it's been measured.  Increased whitespace increases reading comprehension, reduces reading time, and it just looks nicer.  That must have been the rationale behind Google's latest redesign.

Of course, this begs the question: what about print media?  If double line breaks really are better, shouldn't they be better in print, too?  Well, next time I have to print a letter, I will be sure to try it out.  Whenever that happens.  

That begs another question: what's the purpose of putting words on a web page?  If the point is to convey a message, then everything I've said applies.  If, however, the purpose is simply to display beautifully crafted symbols on a digital canvas, then indentation and pilcrows have a whole new utility.  Web design is unquestionably art, and sometimes art exists for its own sake.  A colorable argument can certainly be made.

So then, what's my point?  My point is that gimmicks like indentation and pilcorws are awesome if all you're trying to do is be fancy.  But if your goal is primarily to convey information, then you should follow design conventions like use of white space.  The overlying theme here is know what you're trying to do, and do it effectively.