I read an article with silly formatting. Thanks edent. It gave me a silly idea, and I had to try it out.

Long lines are supposedly harder to read because one can lose ones place when going from the end of one long line to beginning of the next. Increased line spacing supposedly makes it easier to stay on a line. Why not combine the two? The longer the line gets, the bigger the line spacing.

Of course no design idea is too silly that browsers wouldn’t let you do it. This article is displayed with line height equal to 3% of the viewport width. On desktop, changing the window width should change the line height. On mobile, maybe try portrait vs landscape?

line-height: 3dvw;

Why 3 percent of the viewport? It seemed about right on my computer. Of course it doesn’t have to be a linear function. I suppose one could aim for constant density, or optimal reading speed, or whatever. I didn’t. It probably shouldn’t be viewport width either, but width of the actual container. (I.e., at the time of writing, my blog limits the main content to a width of 45em.) I’m sure that’s possible, but I don’t know how to do it.

I don’t have anything more to say, so here’s some filler text to play with.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.