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Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier

beelinereader.com

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

#51

Post by thejacenxpress »

crazygringo wrote: post #39

Hmmmm... I'm sure it'll need a linked scientific study to actually back up the claim. (And every speed-reading product I've seen has usually had a decrease in comprehension rate...) It's a clever idea, but anecdotally, from my experience, I'm finding it slows down my reading -- I'm having a hard time processing the blurbs because I don't read "linearly" -- I scan content to find the relevant parts, and the color chan…

I did find it easier to read faster, however I do believe the JFK portion was chunked with a lot of bigger words/data like years, cities, full names whereas the SBA paragraphs were simpler (IMHO).

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

#52

Post by mekoka »

Installed, tested with a couple of articles. It does the job it claims to do.

A few things: it would be nice to be able to configure the plugin to limit the color variations. I'd like to try with only 2 colors and with less drastic contrasts. I suspect that only a slight transition between two close colors would already be helpful enough for me.

Now, I'm afraid to get used to the crutch and find it harder to read books after. After using vim to edit almost anything, I have developed the bad habit of pressing ctrl-[ to go in normal mode any time I'm in some text editor, be it in the browser, email client, word processor, whatever.

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

#53

Post by pmann »

One tiny bug: in the survey after the reading challenge, I was unable to change the number of hours I read per day. I tried to enter 1.5, but it won't take the decimal and I was unable to backspace to delete the 5.

Overall, a very cool idea, I was surprised to find that I read faster. It said only 3% faster, but I searched for an event mentioned in the first set of text which slowed me down.

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

#54

Post by Blahah »

crazygringo wrote: post #39

Hmmmm... I'm sure it'll need a linked scientific study to actually back up the claim. (And every speed-reading product I've seen has usually had a decrease in comprehension rate...) It's a clever idea, but anecdotally, from my experience, I'm finding it slows down my reading -- I'm having a hard time processing the blurbs because I don't read "linearly" -- I scan content to find the relevant parts, and the color chan…

It might not be a problem for you - it isn't for me either - but many others suffer from this problem. My other half struggles to read because she has so many line transition errors. And she has to spend all day reading. I see a huge market for this.

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

#56

Post by calipast »

snowwrestler wrote: post #48

You can also reduce line transition errors by increasing font size and line spacing. The font in the "What is it" paragraph is, to my eyes, too small and tightly spaced to be easily readable (perhaps purposefully, to demonstrate their value).

That's probably the point: Beeline makes it easier to read more text on a small screen. Increasing font size and line spacing doesn't work well on a smartphone, much less a smartwatch.

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

#57

Post by noneTheHacker »

I really enjoy using this. While people seem to dislike the red and blue default, I enjoy it. I am not a big fan of the colors working together but I feel like it works the best for it's intended functionality of the choices you made available. I think this might make reading some things considerably more enjoyable for me. Thanks!

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

#59

Post by kgmpers »

snowwrestler wrote: post #48

You can also reduce line transition errors by increasing font size and line spacing. The font in the "What is it" paragraph is, to my eyes, too small and tightly spaced to be easily readable (perhaps purposefully, to demonstrate their value).

Completely agree. I couldn't make sense of the gradient deal, but open up the inspector, set the body font size to 16px and the paragraph line height to 150% and it all becomes a lot clearer.
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