TEXT Alignment –penjajaran, perataan, atau pengaturan teks– di situs web (website) atau media online menjadi isu tersendiri di kalangan desainer web: sebaiknya rata kiri (left align) atau rata kiri-kanan (justify/justified)?
Kesimpulannya: text alignment terbaik untuk website adalah rata kiri (left aligned)!
Alasannya, rata kiri adalah:
- Standar penulisan di website.
- Lebih mudah dipindai & dibaca.
- Lebih informal dan “ramah” (friendlier).
- Bawannya rileks!
- Lebih memberikan “ruang putih” (white space) bagi user sehingga tidak melelahkan mata.
Kita lihat dan rasakan perbandingan rata kiri dan rata kiri-kanan dalam gambar berikut ini. Kita bisa merasakan tampilan mana yang lebih enak dipindai, dibaca, dan nyaman di mata:
Justified “tersingkir” karena ia adalah gaya media cetak, formal, penulisan surat resmi, karya ilmiah, dan tidak cocok untuk media online (web) karena sulit dipindai & dibaca.
Itulah sebabnya, FAKTA menunjukkan, situs-situs web terkemuka di dunia –Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter– menggunakan rata kiri.
Situs-sutus berita (news portal) peringkat teratas di Alexa Ranks –CNN, The New York Time, Huffington Post, The Guardian, Forbes, Fox News– juga menggunakan rata kiri.
Demikian halnya situs-situs berita di Indonesia (posisi teratas di ranking Alexa), seperti Detik, Kompas, Liputan6, Tribunnews, Merdeka, Republika Online, BBC Indonesia– menggunakan rata kiri, bukan justified.
Tampilan Teks Berita BBC: Scannable!
Ada juga situs berita Indonesia yang menggunakan justified, seperti JPNN dan Media Indonesia, tapi “risikonya” peringkat mereka berada di bawah situs-situs ber-text align rata kiri.
Referensi Text Aligned Rata Kiri
Berikut ini sejumlah referensi yang menjelaskan mengapa Rata Kiri (Left Align) merupakan text alignment terbaik untuk website. Intinya, rata kiri merupakan standar website dan lebih mudah dipindai & dibaca user internet.
Konsorsium WWW:
“Many people with cognitive disabilities have a great deal of trouble with blocks of text that are justified (aligned to both the left and the right margins). The spaces between words create “rivers of white” running down the page, which can make the text difficult for some people to read.
This failure describes situations where this confusing text layout occurs. The best way to avoid this problem is not to create text layout that is fully justified.” (World Wide Web Consortium/W3C).
Panduan Halaman Web:
“Most commonly used in newspapers and other printed media. Justified text is not implemented on the web in the same way software for printed material adjusts the text.
On the web, additional spaces are added between the words to force the line to fill to the left and right margins. Web pages do not add hyphens like other software will to break up the text more evenly.
The best text alignment for the web is left aligned. This makes the web page easy to scan (which people do on the web), is easier to read and the words are spaced evenly.” (Web Page Mistakes)
Desain Grafis Digital:
Justified text is not usually appropriate on the Web. Justified text is more difficult to read than left-aligned text. This is because of the low resolution of screen displays. This is because of the low resolution of screen displays.
Screen displays cannot cope well with the addition of small, subtle amounts of space between words or letters. As a result, justification always looks poor on screen displays. It tends to result in uneven spacing, and can also sometimes break up the shape of the word (we recognise words based on their overall shape, not on the individual letters).
Left-aligned text is best suited to almost all “body text” use on the Web. Increasing the gap between lines can improve readability. (Leaf Digital)
Forum User Experience (UX):
Try looking at the reviews on Amazon.com, postings to your facebook wall, tweets from your favorite celebrities, and search engine listing results from Google. That’s enough to tell me that left-aligned seems to be the way to go. (Stack Exchange).
UI Design:
For text, it is ideal to use left-alignment when desiging for the screen. Since most for-screen type rendering methods are incapable of distributing space appropriately when justifying text to both sides, left alignment keeps text readable and well organized. You can, of course, use center and right alignment where the design demands it, but those are usually reserved for special cases and smaller chunks of text. (UI Design).
Khotimah
Keputusan di tangan Anda sebagai pemilik web atau pembuat keputusan. Anda bebas memilih rata kiri (left align) atau rata kiri-kanan (justified).
Memilih justify atau left-align tidak salah. Pasalnya, dalam dunia desain, tidak ada istilah salah atau benar; yang ada adalah komunikasi efektif atau tidak efektif.
“There is no right or wrong way to align text,” tulis Desktop About seraya mengutip ungkapan Peter Bilak (Illegibility): “Right and wrong do not exist in graphic design. There is only effective and non-effective communication.”
Namun, menyimak ulasan dan fakta di atas, tampaknya rata kiri merupakan terbaik dan paling efektif karena sesuai dengan “fitrah” website (media online, media siber, media internet) yang memiliki karakteristik yang berbeda karakter dengan media cetak.
Situs web yang memilih “justify/justified” dalam sajian tulisannya berarti memilih “cara yang berbeda” dan “tidak lzim”, mungkin biar “eksklusif”, ingin “beda sendiri”, atau desainer/owner situsnya beraliran “formal”. Wasalam. (www.romeltea.com).*
