Banging a carriage return/line break between each sentence does not increase readability. To believe it does is lazy and is also a misreading of research, mostly by experts in digital accessibility who have done actual testing. This research deals with optimal reading and ‘leading’ or ‘line-spacing’, which is the space between lines of text. The research, and the guidelines, also deal with paragraph spacing, yup, the space between paragraphs.
Two different things: paragraph spacing and line-spacing (aka Leading, which derives its name from the days of hot metal printing when lead slugs were placed between lines of print). Back when I was working in print we used to have discussions, arguments even, about the craft of layout and about leading. 120% of the type size? 110%? It depends on the typeface (serif, sans serif, width, legs, arms, cap heights, strokes, ascenders, headline, body, the font weight… lovely stuff). We used to have discussions about that when we moved into Mac magazine production, and trade paper layouts too.
Nothing I’ve ever read or seen of any authority has ever said, “Just bang a line break between each sentence, that’ll make it easier to read”. That’s just lazy, and it makes for some really annoying, one line per paragraph, BS text that is a chore to read (It’s why sane people use short bulleted lists if they really have to).
Anyway, this link to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) guidance is very useful.
