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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

#131

Post by bobbles »

GrinningFool wrote: post #30

At first glance: wow that's ugly. Then I read it. Fast. Consuming nearly at a paragraph at a glance when I usually can digest only a fragment of a sentence up to a couple of sentence. It's not attractive, but it is clever and innovative - well done!

It said I had a 15% increase. not too sure about that, but one thing i definitely did notice was that was I kept reading the beeline sentence my brain was 'remembering' what I had just read.

I 'constantly' have to re-read entire paragraphs because I realised I've looked at them without really taking anything in. It was really strange to feel like i was processing the text as I was reading it.

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

#132

Post by egonschiele »

welder wrote: post #127
egonschiele wrote: post #117

The bookmarklet wasn't working for me on Chrome (permission errors), so I threw together a Chrome extension with the highlighting code: https://github.com/egonSchiele/beeline

There's already a Chrome extension from the Box.net 2012 Hackathon: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/lca...

I tried it but it didn't work very well for me. It tries to do some readability-esque stuff and doesn't do a very good job. I'd rather just have the coloring with the rest of the page as -is, which is what my extension does.

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

#133

Post by maw »

moron4hire wrote: post #105

well, it significantly mangles things on The Guardian. basically, all of the little "NSA" tags in this article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/governm... get wiped out, making the text difficult to understand. Also, be careful to wait for it to work. I didn't think it worked and clicked it a second time. I ended up with funfetti colors, not smooth gradients.

I smell a conspiracy!!!!!!!!!

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

#134

Post by gnicholas »

lumens wrote: post #119
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #116

Just a counterpoint to all the negativity: The increase in speed was instantly obvious for me. Will be giving this a try for a few weeks at least.

For me as well. I'm actually very surprised by all the negative reactions. FWIW, when I looked the demo, I thought to myself, "Ok, I'm going to try to read this quickly." What was so impressive was how easy that was to do. Total comprehension, less eye strain. Sold.

Thanks for the positive feedback—glad to hear that it works for you! Follow us on twitter to keep apprised of new content/product integrations. There are a couple deals in the works now.

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

#135

Post by saraid216 »

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 suspect that there's a threshold effect going on: if you naturally read faster than a certain speed, certain design tricks will actually make you read even faster. If you naturally read slower, then those same tricks slow you down.

Would love to see it confirmed or falsified.

(As a note, I am probably under this hypothetical threshold; I'm not a slow reader, but I find that efforts to speed up my reading speed generally push it down instead.)

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

#138

Post by mrb »

BeeLine Reader applies a color gradient to text that helps reduce "line transition errors" [...] This increases reading speed, particularly on mobile devices that have small screens and short lines

Err. Line transition errors are common on mobile devices, not because lines are short (the shorter the line, the less common line transition errors are), but because people are usually moving, walking, etc while holding a mobile device.

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

#139

Post by jlgreco »

bigiain wrote: post #122
Miyamoto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For me, that'd be completely unworkable. Moving the mouse/cursor down the page line at a time to read? _Seriously?_

Applying the gradient when you select text might work. For some reason I already have a habit of obsessively selecting text when I am reading, and I've seen other people that do it as well.
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