Reading a Large List - How do your eyes want to follow?

This is for an English (American) Language List.

When your reading a large three (3) Column list how do your eyes move? I currently have a list set up like this Horizontally (But with about 15 rows to the 3 columns).

There is also a space between the columns that I can't seem to figure out how to duplicate here so if anyone knows please feel free to post it below)


A B C
D E F
G H I
J K L

but I find my eyes want to follow the list Vertically like this:

A E I
B F J
C G K
D H L

Am I the only one or should I change this to the vertical way?

 

I'm an american
I would go with the second way
My eye's wouldn't want to keep switching lines

 

SitPoMk - Yeah that's what my eyes keep wanting to do too even though you would think the Horizontal way would be the correct one.

 

Is there actually a standard?

 

From study, (can't give references)

Continuous text, like reading normal text sentences, is easier read horizontally with a column width of 60–65 characters.

Discontinuous text like a list is easier to read as a vertical column. The column length is best kept to fit within a single page (viewport) height, then move to another column. The number of lines in each column should be near equal. Leave a generous gutter between columns.

Consider the readability of a css ruleset, which is a list of property/value pairs:

#wrapper { background-color: #fff; color: #333; margin: 0 auto; max-width: 900px; min-width: 760px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 85%; }

#wrapper {
  background-color: #fff;
  color: #333;
  margin: 0 auto;
  max-width: 900px;
  min-width: 760px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
  width: 85%;
  }

Code (markup):

Which is the easier to read? My money's on the vertical format.

cheers,

gary

 

Thanks Gary great response

 

horizontal

 

Gary is right on!
I agree, vertical is the way to go

 

Verticaly. OR With much spaces between them Because People always Read everything like a sentence when it's horizontally. People take a break when they see it ends. so they think more about that line. So Verticaly

 

id have to disagree here.....people read from left to right