The whole point of the jumper pad designs that I recommended is that I've found them easy to solder. Why? It is my experience that a straight gap is hard to get the solder to bridge because surface tension of the molten solder on the two opposing pads keeps pulling the solder away from the gap. When I use one of the recommended designs I have found that it is easy to rake the a chisel point soldering iron from the wide outer pad over across the narrow inner pad to get the bridge to "take".

Gap size of course is important too. Make it too wide and you'll have to resort to using short wires across the space. Make it too narrow and it will keep bridging unintentionally during manufacturing, particularly if your jumper pads have to go through a solder wave.

Michael Karas