I'd be interested in something like this being used in a e-reader app like Kindle or Aldiko
Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
81–90 of 273 posts
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#82>A study designed and carried out at Stanford University showed an average reading speed increase of over 10 percent for first time users of BeeLine Reader. Many seasoned users experience speed increases of 25 to 30 percent! So why isn't the study linked? Regardless of whether or not the claims are true, who in the hell decided for red and blue for the demo's default? The blues/grays themes look okay. IMO, saturated…
I took their test and came out 2% faster (likely statistical noise more than actual improvement). Regardless, I attribute the improvement to the obscure content in the non beeline reading passage.
I'm curious what others experienced?
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#83>A study designed and carried out at Stanford University showed an average reading speed increase of over 10 percent for first time users of BeeLine Reader. Many seasoned users experience speed increases of 25 to 30 percent! So why isn't the study linked? Regardless of whether or not the claims are true, who in the hell decided for red and blue for the demo's default? The blues/grays themes look okay. IMO, saturated…
The bright color scheme was selected so that it's really obvious to first-time website visitors what's going on. When we read with the bookmarklets, we don't use the bright color scheme—usually it's greyscale or blue/purple.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#84> The BeeLine bookmarklets ... may only be used for personal, non-commercial use. ...available for a limited time ... subject to our privacy policy.
Surely the author is not claiming that putting color on text gives them som sort of patentable intellectual property? If this takes off and people will start incorporating this on their blogs, this company will become one of the biggest patent trolls.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#85I'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…
An alternative bookmarklet would be to apply the gradient to the line your cursor is over, and just move your cursor at the pace you read lines.
This is a great idea, a subtle mix of the gradients and some readers' select-a-few-lines-at-a-time habit.
Or, to mix in another idea (from philip1209) downthread: have the hover-effect add color-matched dots (or other glyphs) at the corresponding line-ends, currently under the pointer.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#86I'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…
An alternative bookmarklet would be to apply the gradient to the line your cursor is over, and just move your cursor at the pace you read lines.
that would be very annoying when reading on any touch based device. Even on a normal laptop - most people who can read well enough dont need to follow the text with the cursor anyways .. its just adds an unnecessary action that would work against the goal of this concept - speeding peoples reading up!
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#87I find it awful, as my eyes keep jumping to the color changes, assuming them to indicate some kind of emphasis. Then I have to stop and go, "No, that's not a particularly important word, it's just the Time Cube style they're pushing."
Looking at the text on their site, I suspect (aside from issues like dyslexia) that the real problem is that a lot of people are reading text that's too small and probably has overly-wide lines.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#88>A study designed and carried out at Stanford University showed an average reading speed increase of over 10 percent for first time users of BeeLine Reader. Many seasoned users experience speed increases of 25 to 30 percent! So why isn't the study linked? Regardless of whether or not the claims are true, who in the hell decided for red and blue for the demo's default? The blues/grays themes look okay. IMO, saturated…
I took their test and came out 2% faster (likely statistical noise more than actual improvement). Regardless, I attribute the improvement to the obscure content in the non beeline reading passage. I'm curious what others experienced?
I did the test and came out 37% ahead. I was surprised.
That said, I often find myself fiddling with the cursor to mark my place when I'm reading something long, so the idea that extra indicators of place might help doesn't surprise me.
I feel better line spacing might also help - their test seemed to have the lines pretty tight together, although I'm not surprised a test would be designed to best showcase their software.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#89You 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.
It works fine, it just creates a bit more scrolling.
Re: Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier
#90>A study designed and carried out at Stanford University showed an average reading speed increase of over 10 percent for first time users of BeeLine Reader. Many seasoned users experience speed increases of 25 to 30 percent! So why isn't the study linked? Regardless of whether or not the claims are true, who in the hell decided for red and blue for the demo's default? The blues/grays themes look okay. IMO, saturated…
I took their test and came out 2% faster (likely statistical noise more than actual improvement). Regardless, I attribute the improvement to the obscure content in the non beeline reading passage. I'm curious what others experienced?
I had basically the exact same experience. I'm a bit dubious about whether this actually helps on a computer, since I can just use my mouse cursor to track lines.