Text: justified or not?

[Darksky]

What's the best choice for long articles posted in a multipage area wide about 550 px and with a font of about 12-13 pixel? Justified text seems to give to the page better symmetry and order, but it seems that it make hard reading the article.
Left text align instead make reading much more easy but the general layout of the article si not good, plenty, full, orderd, simmetric.

[lemat]

Ask this question to _your_users_ - do a survey.
I prefer justify...

[Robert Charlton]

Justified text is fine as long as column is wide enough. If your text column gets too narrow, justified text might cause some awkward spacing between words, and that can look very bad. Unless the layout looks really terrible with left align, I'd go for readability.

[shinyblue]

I second that. Remember, your users come to your site *primarily* for informatin, not because it looks good. Looking good should enhance the ability for people to absorbe the message, not detract from it.