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Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

beelinereader.com

11–20 of 273 posts

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#11
Personally, I am not a fan of this "reader". The changing color is a distraction to my reading experience. The scheme I found the least distracting was the "Gray" scheme. But, I am not someone who would use it. Interesting concept though - I hadn't thought about it earlier.

PS - I am a voracious reader.

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#12
My gut feeling (and the websites I enjoy reading, and what I recently did to my blog) is that line skipping is due to too long lines combined with little font-size and line height. But of course, not all eyes/eye-brain systems work the same, and I'm sure this will be more helpful to some than larger fonts with larger line heights.

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#13
I'm initially inclined to dismiss this as ugly and distracting, especially with the default colors being very similar to the traditional link/visited HTML colors. It would be worth exploring further if the claimed improvements are true.

I'd especially be interested in exploring ways to incorporate this into better designed color schemes so that it doesn't look so much like a unicorn vomited on the page while preserving the benefits and usability.

I'm also less inclined to dismiss improvements like these after misinterpreting the occasional email from colleagues lately. I don't know if it is assuming I know the full contents from the 3 line summary on mobile devices, processing too much email, or simply not paying enough attention but I've had to slow down and make sure I get things right.

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#16
Having recently looked into speed reading a bit, this seems to do a quite good job at filling the role of a pacer without actually requiring any manual interaction by the reader. Nice work! Easily beats trying to pace yourself with the mouse cursor or text selection at least, while actually preserving pages mostly as-is.

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#17
post #13

I'm initially inclined to dismiss this as ugly and distracting, especially with the default colors being very similar to the traditional link/visited HTML colors. It would be worth exploring further if the claimed improvements are true. I'd especially be interested in exploring ways to incorporate this into better designed color schemes so that it doesn't look so much like a unicorn vomited on the page while preservi…

Adjusting to something like the "Blues" color scheme seems to make things a bit nicer.

What I'm worried about is comprehension.

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#19

My gut feeling (and the websites I enjoy reading, and what I recently did to my blog) is that line skipping is due to too long lines combined with little font-size and line height. But of course, not all eyes/eye-brain systems work the same, and I'm sure this will be more helpful to some than larger fonts with larger line heights.

I very much agree.

Line height, line width, and font size, are the 3 elements of a body of large text that must be balanced. There is some basic arithmetic to this, and it appears everyone seems to ignore it. (HN's design is a perfect example of the 'meh' attitude toward readability.)

I think this article does a good job of visually explaining this balance and how to accomplish it: http://www.pearsonified.com/2011/12/golden-ratio-typography....

Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

#20
post #2

Any plans to make this available as a plugin for ebook readers?

We're in early-stage talks with some companies in the ebook space—DRM obviously forces us to deal with the owners of various walled gardens. We'd love to find a popular, DRM-free, ebook platform. Suggestions welcome!

Is this based on open research or is the idea of gradients over text itself the patent-pending invention?

I'd love to integrate this with my iOS speed-reading app (http://velocireaderapp.com). Any interest in collaborating on a spin-off iOS app, to read, say, DRM-free ePubs? My contact info is in my profile.

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