
Show HN: Ditch Black Text to Read Faster, Easier - gnicholas
http://www.BeeLineReader.com
======
crazygringo
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 changes are making it difficult to scan (because my eye can no longer
use color to determine what is scannable and what isn't), and multiple columns
is actually making it even more difficult (it looks like the blue in column 1
leads into the blue in column 2, instead of the blue at the next line of
column 1). By trying to force me to read line-by-line, instead of scanning
efficiently, it's making me read slower.

But that's just for short-form stuff. It could turn out to be faster for some
layouts, and slower for others. But honestly, I've never felt I had difficulty
locating the start of the next line... is this a problem that needs solving?
But nevertheless, it's certainly a good example of clever out-of-the-box
thinking.

~~~
3pt14159
I normally read around 600 to 1000 wpm (depending on how dense or vapid it
is). This speeds up my reading wayyyyy past that. 1500 wpm? And I was barely
trying. It does look super fucking ugly, but it totally works for me. They
need to bring in an army of designers and make software geared towards legal
assistants / lawyers because they need this desperately.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I read at 146 words per minute, and that is average text. I probably read
slower when the material is hard. Over the past year or so I went through
roughly 90% of Plato's work (like, really), The Quran (partially), On the
Nature of Things, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Discourses by Epictetus, How
to Read by M. Adler, Alchemy of Happiness by Ghazalli, etc.... I also read
several short text including James Allen, Xenophon, etc... Currently I am
reading Jacques Rousseau, and getting back soon to Adam Smith Wealth of
Nations... I also started but did not finish yet the Communist Manifesto, How
we think (slightly), Prior Analytics (slightly) and perhaps my hardest read
ever, Suma Theologica. I am 100% sure I forgot a couple of books I read. Many
of these writings I re-read a few times because they are hard to grasp for me.
AT 146 words/minute. I am an inefficient reader, and I never knew it. I am
going to thoroughly research ways to improve this.

~~~
JasonFruit
None of those are works that _should_ be speed-read. Thomas Aquinas, Plato,
Epictetus, the Qur'an, and (above all) the Bible should be rolled around the
mouth, tasted deeply, and either made a part of you or thoroughly spit out if
they are found indigestible. If your mechanical reading speed is the limiting
factor in reading these works, you're doing it wrong.

~~~
corin_
Why the Bible above all?

~~~
DanBC
Because the King James bible had considerable effort to translate original
texts into best possible English, preserving meaning but also creating a
suitably "glorious" text.

Very many concepts, words, metaphors, etc come from the King James
translation.

Ignoring any religious stuff - it's a good read.

EDIT: corrected my st / king error!

~~~
kingmanaz
Try the Knox bible, (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox's_Translation_of_the_Vulga...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox's_Translation_of_the_Vulgate)
):

"It was my resolve to live watchfully, and never use my tongue amiss; still,
while I was in the presence of sinners, I kept my mouth gagged, dumb and
patient, impotent for good. But indignation came back, and my heart burned
within me, the fire kindled by my thoughts, so that at last I kept silence no
longer.

"Lord, warn me of my end, and how few my days are; teach me to know my own
insufficiency. See how thou hast measured my years with a brief span, how my
life is nothing in thy reckoning! Nay, what is any man living but a breath
that passes? Truly man walks the world like a shadow; with what vain anxiety
he hoards up riches, when he cannot tell who will have the counting of them!
What hopes then is mine, Lord? In thee alone I trust. Clear me of that
manifold guilt which makes me the laughing-stock of fools, tongue-tied and
uncomplaining, because I know that my troubles come from thee; spare me this
punishment; I faint under thy powerful hand. When thou dost chasten man to
punish his sins, gone is all he loved, as if the moth had fretted it away; a
breath that passes, and no more. Listen, Lord to my prayer, let my cry reach
thy hearing, and my tears win answer. What am I in thy sight but a passer-by,
a wanderer, as all my fathers were? Thy frown relax, give me some breath of
comfort, before I go away and am known no more."

-Psalm 38 (39) from Knox's Translation of the Vulgate.

Knox's translation is lucid when compared with the "correct" and dead modern
translations of the bible. Try it if King James does not speak to you.

~~~
calinet6
That verse is perhaps the clearest explanation I have ever read of why
religion exists. Thank you.

------
GrinningFool
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!

~~~
bobbles
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.

------
mutagen
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.

~~~
Miyamoto
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.

~~~
bigiain
For me, that'd be completely unworkable.

Moving the mouse/cursor down the page line at a time to read? _Seriously?_

~~~
jlgreco
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.

------
jere
>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 red and blue and probably the two worst colors to use together in a
design.

~~~
josho
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?

~~~
Smirnoff
I had a similar thought when I read the texts. The first (b&w) text was just
harder to comprehend due to esoteric words, lack of thought direction, and
several personas. I couldn't understand what author was trying to say. The
second (colored) text was about a female teacher and had a common vocabulary
and a straight-forward theme with one character.

According to them I read 11% faster. Although I guessed on 2 out 3 questions,
compared to knowing all 3 from b&w text.

Thus, I call BS on their testing experience. These two texts are way too
different. And picking an easier one for beeline text does a disservice to
this hopefully legit fast reading method.

~~~
calipast
Actually, the test randomizes which passage you receive in which color. So if
you got the "harder" one in Beeline, you might have the opposite experience.
(I've tried it a couple times to see how it works...)

------
cliveowen
I was ready to call B.S. on this but after actually seeing it in action, it
seems very reasonable. I wonder why this hasn't been done before. I happen to
skip lines very often, I'll definitely try this out.

EDIT: Some feedback after reading a Cracked article with it.

First of all, since the inception of the Readability bookmarklet I've always
read online articles with some kind of tool (I started with Readability, then
passed to the Safari version and now I've been using Clearly for quite some
time and I'm pretty happy about it) and now I'm so used to it that if a
particular article doesn't render properly, I just straight out don't read it.
The first thing I noticed is that the coloration is applied even to single-
line titles, I would do away with it and (maybe) apply it only on multi-line
paragraphs' titles. The other thing that irked me is that small images are put
on the left side instead of being centered, even worse is the fact that text
appears on the right side of the images; I would follow Clearly steps in this
regard and always put the text under the centered images. Lastly, I would
reduce the text area to 600px of width or better yet, dynamically size it so
as to accommodate around 60 characters. As far as I can tell, you totally
nailed the font size.

~~~
gnicholas
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback—we are talking with Evernote about Clearly
integration. They have a great platform and we hope to integrate with them
soon!

~~~
fudged71
I would also love to see Clearly integration! I use it for everything, and you
don't need to fuss with background colors or anything.

Please give more options for colors and gradients. I'm sure everyone has
different tastes and habits.

------
quadrangle
Others have pointed this out but: "BeeLine Reader is a patent pending
technology" Well, there goes any respect I might have had for this. It is not
obvious in every respect, but this is such a basic idea, trying to control it
for 20 years while people perhaps find it useful and build this feature
everywhere is absolutely destructive. I hope their patent is rejected.

FWIW, I liked it.

------
opminion
Although it is fair to have an opinion about this based on personal
experience, remember that performance when reading is a personal matter
(anecdotal evidence: the crowd that highlights text for reading [1];
scientific evidence: dyslexia).

So it is good to remember that it might or might not work depending on the way
your individual brain works, independently of what the person next to you gets
from it.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839436)

------
Daiz
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.

------
johnny99
For some reason the color gradients changed the intonation with which I read
it--so the whole thing sounded, in my mind's ear, like an eighties valley
girl, replete with uptalk, aka the "moronic interrogative."*

"BeeLine Reader is an exciting new technology? That helps people read faster?
On computers?"

Maybe I'd get used to it. But if not, a 100x speed increase wouldn't be worth
having that in my head. Like, all day?

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal)

------
simlevesque
Wow, It feels like the first time I tried glasses. It completely removes any
chances of me missing a line. I have a low dyslexia and this just works. Thank
you !!

~~~
simlevesque
I prefer it to the dyslexic font, it feels less disruptive. It should come
bundled with every os :)

------
RBerenguel
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.

~~~
Slackwise
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....](http://www.pearsonified.com/2011/12/golden-ratio-
typography.php)

~~~
RBerenguel
Heh, read it (it's in my Instapaper for some future referenc since it appeared
first heree) But when I did the redesign I just went with the flow and what I
saw nice on my screen. After all, what I write in my blog works as future
reference for me, too :)

------
burgeralarm
The testing methodology is quite flawed (at least for the reading speed test
on the site). It asks you to read a passage with BeeReader to start out. When
you're done, you're presented with questions about the passage before reading
a non-BeeReader passage.

The catch is, you will almost certainly read the second passage slower than
the first, since you're now looking to retain information for the questions!

The colored passages _feel_ faster, but I'm not sure that counts for much.

~~~
woebtz
My test presented the non-BeeReader passage before the BeeReader version, so
there's definitely some randomization going on.

Perhaps the aggregate A/B numbers make a more compelling case for using
BeeReader?

I wonder if the color combo choice has any affect on the speed/comprehension
of the text.

------
vsviridov
I read a lot and I read really fast too. So line skipping is a problem,
especially on longer lines.

This thing combines the old Readability bookmarklet with the gradient. I saw
the improvement right away, following the line is much easier now!

tl;dr - this is awesome!

~~~
marincounty
It's ironic, you double spaced your sentences. Maybe, that's the answer; More
authors should double space?

------
afandian
"It looks like BeeLine didn't improve your reading speed this time through."

Why not show me the stats? I'd like to know, even if it doesn't confirm what
you want it to.

------
zapt02
> 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.

------
skizm
Yikes, harsh crowd here. So many people demanding scientific studies to back
up the website's claims.

Better idea: Chill out. Then take 1 minute and read some stuff with it on. If
you think it feels better try it for longer if not move on with your life.

No has claimed to cure cancer here, just that formatting text differently
might give marginal increases in reading speed.

~~~
tomkarlo
It's not that clear-cut. There's a real reason to ask if there's studies here,
because it's not easy to self-assess if this actually works. Reading is more
than just "how fast can I scan the lines in order" \- it's also about
comprehension, eye fatigue, etc. All of which are hard for an individual to
assess casually.

I think this is interesting, but I'd want to see studies on what the
incremental cognitive load of "color matching" (not something I'm particularly
great at) does to reading comprehension, and what the impact of this is on how
_much_ I can read in a sitting. It's no good if you read 50% faster but tire
out 3X as fast.

~~~
skizm
I totally disagree with this sentiment (respectfully, of course). If you know
the numbers it will bias your experience. You need to try it for yourself and
determine on an individual level if your comprehension/speed suffers, improves
or stays the same.

~~~
pessimizer
Your self-assessment of your subjective experience is notoriously inaccurate
and biased in particular, predictable ways.

------
__alexs
Anyone else the numerous AOL chat plugins that used to do this back in the
day? e.g. [http://www.tpasoft.com/fadeit/](http://www.tpasoft.com/fadeit/)

~~~
pessimizer
Prior art...

------
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.

~~~
hammock
Short could refer to letter height, not line length.

------
josh2600
So this is obviously a problem, right? We had MagicScroll [0] which got a ton
of positive hits, and now this. I believe there have also been a few other
attempts along the way as well. The crux of the issue is
velocity+comprehension.

I don't like magicscroll because of the way the lines scroll down; I find it
disconcerting. In the case of Beeline, I can't stand the color scheme.

The goals of both software are admirable and I'd love to see more work in this
space, but I don't think either of them have it exactly right. If the designer
is on here, consider using an interior design color picker website[1] to find
a color scheme that works better than the current one.

In short, this is a problem and it would be valuable to somebody like Amazon
if it were polished, IMHO.

[0][https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magicscroll-web-
re...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magicscroll-web-
reader/ecldhagehndokdmaiaigoaecbmbnmfkc?hl=en)
[1][http://colorschemedesigner.com/](http://colorschemedesigner.com/) as an
example.

~~~
gnicholas
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone! There are two reasons that the color
scheme on the front page is so bright (and to some folks, ugly).

First, we wanted to make it really obvious what's going on, and if we'd used a
subtle color gradient, it wouldn't have been as obvious. We realize that
many/most people won't ultimately use the bright color scheme for one reason
or another.

The second point is that people perceive color differently, so what is bright
to one person may not seem so bright to someone else. There tend to be age-
related correlations/causes here--it's why old people tend to wear lots of
bright blues. To them, the blues don't look as bright. What we've found is
that younger folks tend like the more subtle colors (eyes are more sensitive)
and older folks tend to like the brighter colors (because they can't perceive
the color difference in the subtle schemes). We anticipate rolling out our
product/feature with a color picker palette so that users can choose the right
color scheme for their visual physiology.

Thanks again for all the comments and suggestions, and please feel free to
email us through the website if you have an app/site that you'd like to use
BeeLine with. We have some code that will make integration pretty easy.

~~~
toyg
Bug report: try using the bookmarklet on this:
[http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/readme/hss_1112...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/readme/hss_1112200_readme.html)

It shows only the first paragraph.

(I know, I'm a sad person, but that's the sort of text-heavy doc I have to
read all day).

------
gamerDude
I definitely noticed that I could read faster with this. And the colors were
super obnoxious, so grayscale was my choice. What I would really appreciate
was if it could be done without taking it out of the page I was already on.

I would really appreciate some way for it to automatically do it and not take
me to a new page, maybe something I could install into my browser?

~~~
gnicholas
We are absolutely working on more native implementations. This is just the
first iteration!

~~~
gwern
What about a JavaScript version sites could use as a library? (My personal
website is text-heavy and might benefit from a very subtle version of this,
but I can't A/B test a browser extension.)

~~~
gnicholas
Get in touch with me through the email link on the website. We have code that
makes this easy.

~~~
luke-stanley
Loading external scripts each time isn't secure.

------
ecthiender
I am a voracious reader and I read pretty fast(never measured it though), and
this really sped up my reading a lot. That was impressive. But "patent
pending" ? Like someone has already pointed out here, patents like this are
destructive and I too hope that it is rejected.

------
snowwrestler
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).

~~~
calipast
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.

~~~
wildgift
I think the line spacing and line length matter more than the font size. With
these high-resolution displays, the fonts can be pretty small, and they're
still readable, but you then need to make the column narrower and add a couple
pixels to the line height.

------
x0054
I am dyslexic. I just used the screen reader on the iPhone to read to me the
challenge text at full speed. It told me that I read 4% faster with BeeLine on
:) apparently the iPhone cares, because I wasn't even looking at the screen.

Insidently, the speak function of iOS is amazing for people with dyslexia. I
use it all the time to listen to text at speeds of 300+wpm. I know many of my
friends can read at 600+wpm my them selves, but not for a few hours on end. In
any case, if you are dyslexic and use iOS, check out the read function under
accessibilities.

------
IanCal
I find this incredibly hard to read, my eyes feel like they're being pulled to
sudden colour changes. I find this extremely difficult to scan, as well.

------
trustfundbaby
I could see people licensing this as a mode in apps, that is ... you hit a
button and all the text changes to use this color mode to allow you read
through things faster. Then you can turn it off if you want to read things a
bit more leisurely ... and yes, it did speed up my reading, not sure if that's
a placebo effect or actual.

------
tomphoolery
Isn't that why proper typography establishes line width limits and a bit of
space between each line? That always made it a lot easier to "know where I
was"...when I could see the beginning _and_ end of a line of text without
having to move my eyes.

------
egonschiele
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](https://github.com/egonSchiele/beeline)

~~~
welder
There's already a Chrome extension from the Box.net 2012 Hackathon:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-
reader/lca...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-
reader/lcacgebkomahcbghabmikokgjkflmlko)

~~~
egonschiele
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.

------
liquidcool
A big pet peeve of mine has been the trend to forgo black fonts for lower
contrast grey, and it appears this developer is doing that as well (#333
instead of #000 when "Off" is selected). My hunch is that low contrast text
(I've even seen medium grey on light grey!) comes from designing on a
fantastic display with 100%+ color gamut and great accuracy and viewing
angles. Take a phone/tablet/laptop with an average (lousy) LCD into a brightly
lit room (or God forbid, outside) and the contrast goes in the toilet. Is
black on white that hard?

The other problem I see (mostly on Chrome) is that headings are anti-aliased,
but the body text is not. The difference is subtle, but still noticeable.

------
philip1209
When speed reading, this doesn't seem particularly effective. Perhaps a dot at
the end of the line with a particular color that corresponds to a dot of the
same color preceding the following line would be better for those who minimize
eye movements.

------
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.

~~~
gnicholas
We absolutely plan to make configurable versions available—this is just the
first iteration. As for your concern about extended use: the only thing we've
heard so far is the precise opposite. People have contacted us to say that
they experience a "training effect", so to speak. Apparently reading with the
color gradient helps them read in black for some period after. Would love to
know how it works for you—feel free to contact through the email address on
the website!

------
munchor
I find myself selecting text every now and then to make it easier to read. On
the examples on BeeLineReader's website, I was surprised I didn't have to
select text to read it.

The examples in the bottom of the page really helped me realize how much this
helps. Seriously, I read those paragraphs with the "Bright" theme and then I
read them with BeeLineReader disabled ("Off") and I could notice my brain
working harder.

I realize it looks ugly as other commenters have posted before, there's
probably another method that doesn't make the text look so "ugly".

------
count
That page physically hurts my eyes to read.

~~~
ozten
Anecdotal, but I also got started to get a headache reading that page. Had to
close it.

------
sherjilozair
I would pay to get a PDF version of this. I read PDF documents all the time.

~~~
andrewfong
This. I am a lawyer. I read hundreds of lines of dense fine print every day.
It is quite possibly the worst part of my job.

------
dirtyaura
Interesting concept. Do they have a research paper out describing the results
in more detail?

A couple of problems: 1) beelining doesn't work well with links in text 2)
Doesn't work on Hacker News at all.

~~~
stared
I tried it on HN as well and the same issue. Otherwise looks as a great idea!

------
tonydiv
BIG thanks for not lying to me after I didn't perform any better reading the
colored text. I would definitely consider showing the colored text first for
some others, and second for others. Once I knew that you were going to ask
questions about the text, I became more attentive. Nonetheless, I tried to
read as if I didn't know there would be questions afterwards in hopes of not
skewing the results.

Once again, thanks for being honest in your test and not convincing me to use
something that might not actually help me.

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

~~~
gnicholas
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!

~~~
kranner
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](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.

------
phaker
2 Suggestions:

1\. It'd be _very_ nice if you had a version that tweaks text colors and
doesn't touch anything else, i.e. just like on the demo page. When I tested
your bookmarklet and it tore up the page I thought something was broken. I
only found out that it uses readability because I started digging when it
'broke', you never mention 'readability' in your copy.

2\. People will want it enabled by default. You can't do that if you use
readability.

~~~
fvirexi
For your first suggestion, I dusted off some old code and modified it
slightly:

[http://pastebin.com/qV8fU1a4](http://pastebin.com/qV8fU1a4)

It should keep the layout as is, while only adding color, but I have only
tested it on wikipedia. The color period is wrong, but it will show you some
approximation of how sites will look with a non-interrupting beeline
bookmarklet.

------
Semiapies
I 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.

------
limejuice
I tried it out for awhile, and it did seem to help me read faster, but I felt
like my brain was been strained. If I started doing this all the time, I'm
wondering if my brain would freak out reading regular black on white text.

I'm wondering if just adding reference points along the margin or between
lines could accomplish the same thing without having to change the text color.
Something similar to the tick marks along a graph axis.

------
mistercow
This is surprisingly effective and awesome.

I created a (very hacky) style sheet to do this in calibre:
[https://gist.github.com/osuushi/6456804](https://gist.github.com/osuushi/6456804)
. It gets a bit out of alignment when a paragraph wraps to a new column or
page, but over all it gets the job done.

Edit: I fixed it to do one color transition per line, like the original.

------
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.

~~~
gnicholas
Thanks for the feedback! It's not just about speed, it's about reading ease
too. We hear great things from people who read while on public transit. All
the movement makes line transitions (and staying on the same line in general)
more difficult.

------
homosaur
WOW, I just tried this on some text and although I think I'd need some more
objective tests, it FEELS faster, like significantly so.

------
ruricolist
I've just learned something about how my own vision works.

Apparently, when I'm reading on screen, somewhere towards the middle of the
line, I switch my focus from my left eye to my right. This makes it obvious,
because with the color at the end of the line, I switch too soon, and miss the
third of the line in the middle.

Possibly this is a consequence of wearing glasses.

------
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!

------
jianshen
Also check out [http://www.spreeder.com](http://www.spreeder.com)

A different approach but also bookmarklet

~~~
scholia
Interesting, thanks!

------
Groxx
This has been around for a little while, hasn't it? Like, a year or two at
least? I'm reasonably sure I've seen this website before...

Not to say it's not interesting / not a valuable submission. I love the idea,
and it seems like it might help me read faster, which is always cool. Just
wondering if my memory is correct.

~~~
gnicholas
Good memory—we have been around for a little while. I waited to do a Show HN
until we got the website revamped earlier this summer. The web work was done
by a couple of freelancers that I met through a HN freelance post, as it
happens. The HN community is awesome, and it's great to bring it full circle!

------
ChrisNorstrom
Hmmm. Is it possible to try this: Make a version that creates a black to grey
gradient for every sentence. The beginning of every sentence starts out black
and gradually turns grey at the end of the sentence. Then try it switched.
Make it start grey and turn black. Test both.

Just wondering what the result would be. Out of curiosity.

------
denzil_correa
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.

~~~
wambotron
I completely agree. I tried the test in dark and then grayscale, neither time
was an improvement over black text.

------
jwarren
I was really surprised to find myself enjoying using this. Great work! Taking
the test really emphasised that it's not only faster, it's also "easier" to
read. I used the Dark colour scheme, as it was less distracting than the
bright default one for me.

------
ripter
I learned to speed read years ago, and this breaks that for me. One of the
keys with speed reading is that you don't read every single word. With this I
was reading every word. It felt slower and tiring.

The test said that it did not improve my reading but didn't say why.

~~~
qu4z-2
I wonder if the test tells you when you read faster without it. Subjectively I
feel that I did, but the test just returned "No improvement with
BeeLineReader"

------
fouc
I suggest avoiding bright blue in your default colour scheme for
beelinereader.

The reason is because it matches the default colour for links. I wouldn't be
surprised if many people tend to read linked text a bit differently.

Have you thought about using colours like orange, green, purple?

------
saraid216
I did History, used Bright, and got a 43% improvement.

Then I got suspicious. I thought that I was subconsciously affecting my own
behavior. (Anticipating a test, for instance. Expecting Beeline to speed up my
reading, for instance.)

So I did Nature, used Bright, and got no improvement.

...I need a better blind.

------
Too
Could work. Look at how kids read initally, they use a ruler to keep track of
what line they are at. Even some teenagers do this or adults with dyslexia.

I wonder if it would hamper your normal reading abilities if you start reading
like this most of the time from young age.

------
danso
Colored text is often associated with links in the context of HTML...what
about striped backgrounds, as is commonly used for table rows?

[http://alistapart.com/article/zebratables](http://alistapart.com/article/zebratables)

------
babuskov
I don't know about you, but I'm really reading faster. And that's because I'm
only reading the red text. I just realized I skipped all the blue content, and
don't have a clue if anything useful was written there.

------
Moto7451
I like this a lot, but unfortunately going to various news sites (NY Times,
Slashdot, etc) it seems like the bookmarklet failed or complained it wasn't
designed for the home page (in cases where it wasn't a home page).

------
wffurr
I find it counterintuitive that this helped experienced readers more. It
didn't make a difference for me in their test, and I read constantly. I would
suspect this line coloring would help a less experienced reader more.

------
Jemaclus
I... I wasn't aware this was a problem.

Huh.

~~~
mutagen
It is a problem, especially for beginning readers who struggle to comprehend
as they're reading and don't have the 'bandwidth' to parse the incorrect
sentence and find their place in the text on the fly. Stressful situations
(tests, public reading in front of the class, etc) likely make this worse.

------
gnud
Well, this looks interesting, but doesn't work with HTTPS. Which is a problem.

------
sequoia
Add underline to links (many sites identify them only by color, link
"disappears" with beeline).

Awesome marklet! Is the source available? I'd be happy to fix this issue up
myself if it's in VCS somewhere.

------
wambotron
I tried their test and had no improvement in reading speed. I also use my
mouse to read on a desktop (highlight end of one line and start of the next)
as I go, so I think this product is just not made for me.

~~~
gnicholas
Ever try reading on a phone/tablet while riding on a subway car? Might be
worth it there!

------
georgeg
For some reason i found myself calculating the patterns of blue, red and black
and if words like 'the' 'and' always fall on black or red highlights. I guess
that slowed me down big time.

------
shire
I could see this working, I tend to read slower with black text maybe because
I lose track of where I am during the page. The downside is this hurts my eyes
and makes me dizzy because of my computer screen.

------
enraged_camel
It's funny that so many commenters are complaining about the lack of a linked
study. It's as if people are incapable of independently analyzing the claims
and reaching their own conclusions.

------
hammock
Easier to read line by line, perhaps. But certainly much harder to skim. If
you wanted to skim a paragraph at a time as I often do, the artificial
emphasis created by the coloring throws you off.

------
moron4hire
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...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-
betrayed-internet-nsa-spying)

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.

~~~
funmi
Also doesn't work on the NY Times. For example, none of this article's text
displays after clicking the bookmarklet:
[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/americans-go-to-
gre...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/americans-go-to-great-
lengths-to-mask-their-web-travels-survey-finds/?ref=technology)

------
hnriot
I was skeptical, I took the test, it said I was 23% faster on the fiction, so
as much as I think it looks a little ugly, if it really is that much faster,
then it's worth it and clever.

------
usaphp
Have anyone viewed the generated DOM tree? It looks like every single letter
has a tag around it, which will make it painfully slow on older computers if
you have a pretty long blog post.

~~~
Maarten88
It already makes their homepage very slow on my Surface RT. Colors appear only
after several seconds and IE 11 is asking if it should continue or stop the
long-running script all the time.

I like the effect, though. I hope they can optimize it technically.

------
prehkugler
It's iOS 7 for text!

Seriously though, it would be interesting to see this as a feature in new
e-readers. I have a feeling that if the e-ink could support it, the effect
could be better than books.

------
x0054
I would like to see a version that does selective highlighting. So it would
highlight verbs and nouns, maybe bold famous names and dates, and gray out
slightly transition words.

------
ArekDymalski
Does the research provide any info about fatigue after using it?

------
lifeisstillgood
Can I make the obvious comment: it's not how fast you read text, but what text
you choose to read.

Reading super fast over the National Inquirer is not likely to be an overall
win.

------
seanica
There's one problem I have with it. This afternoon it triggered a migraine.

I just came back just now, just in case it was a co-incidence, and yep, it was
not a co-incidence.

~~~
starburst
Me too, maybe it is the color (blue / red contrast), I know that ~black
background with ~white text is an instant trigger for me, always immediately
close the tab when I visit such website. Do you see the words kind of
"vibrating" when it triggered your migraine?

------
nazgulnarsil
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.

~~~
lumens
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.

~~~
gnicholas
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.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Oh you're the creator? cool. A word of advice: work out a way to sell this to
doctors and other people who need to keep appraised of massive amounts of
info. They have the money and the motivation to be your primary customer base.

~~~
thehomie
He is. Also, I'm his friend and the original coder of the bookmarklets.

------
enscr
It's very distracting for me personally. I'd prefer a subtle gradient on the
margin to help me keep track of the area where I'm at.

------
Fuxy
Is it just me or is anybody else thinking that just making lines alternate
between colors (think of tables) would do a better job.

Why do we need fancy gradients?

------
brador
I'll be testing this with different color schemes, but yeah, works!

Addition: for eink readers, would underline or italics work in place of color
gradient?

~~~
drivers99
You could accomplish something like this the same way with a "green bar"[1]
style of background. That is, the background of every two (or three... I think
two would be better but you could test it) lines having a light green (or
blue, or since you mentioned eInk, grey) background and then two lines with a
normal white background.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_printer#Paper_.28forms.29_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_printer#Paper_.28forms.29_handling)
"The paper was usually perforated to tear into cut sheets if desired and was
commonly printed with alternating white and light-green areas, _allowing the
reader to easily follow a line of text across the page_. This was the iconic
'green bar' form that dominated the early computer age. " (emphasis mine)

------
calipast
As an academic who has to give a lot of conference papers I bet this would be
great for reading off an iPad or laptop without losing my spot.

------
bal00ns
Aside from the bookmarklet, I love it. Without an extension, though, I don't
see myself using it. Hopefully we'll see one soon.

~~~
gnicholas
Yep, we're working on it. We have a couple of deals in the works, and we are
hoping to get on major platforms.

------
ahf
Interesting. Line skipping is by far the most annoying problem that I face
when I have to read after a long day; especially on a screen.

------
rglover
Hideous, but I'll be damned if it didn't allow me to read that page extremely
fast. Wonder where this could be used...

------
devindotcom
Not worth the trade-off, if you ask me. I would never publish something that
looks like this. It is very distracting to me.

~~~
kennywinker
It's probably not a technology to be used by publishers. It seems like more of
a reader-level technology. A browser or ebook reader/app feature.

------
_pmf_
The examples are a bit short (line length). It seems to be more useful with
longer lines, and confusing with short lines.

------
rohanpai
I remember seeing this at the Box Hackathon a year ago but couldn't find it
online. Thought it was neat. Congrats!

------
shin_lao
It doesn't make me read any faster and I have the feeling I pay less attention
to the content. Am I the only one?

------
mharrison
As an author/programmer I would love to see a LaTeX implementation... (If only
there were more time in the day)

------
auggierose
Let's say it this way: If you actually profit from a 20% increase in reading
speed, then you read way too much.

------
joshmn
Totally reminds me of the days when Yahoo messenger was used, and they had
that fading, gradient text. Super cool.

------
kul_
Nice! Can BeeLine be made to work with MagicScroll? Currenly if i click one
bookmarklet the other one breaks.

~~~
rdwallis
I created MagicScroll.

BeeLine doesn't detect line breaks.

Instead it puts a span around every character and sets its color manually.

Anyway the individual spans cause issues for MagicScroll but it should be
relatively easy to retrofit MagicScroll to add the beeline gradient to each
line.

------
newobj
Very interesting. Gave it a bit of a test run and it felt good. I'm definitely
going to try it out.

------
flanbiscuit
I'd be interested in something like this being used in a e-reader app like
Kindle or Aldiko

~~~
gnicholas
We're talking with Amazon, and we'll get in touch with Aldiko! Thanks for the
suggestion.

------
jbverschoor
Love it.. Never install extensions, but will install this one.

Not usable for sites, but very much so for articles

------
xarien
This actually strains my eyes quite a bit, but that's just 1 personal sample.

------
jackspringer
I tried it and it actually felt quite easier to follow along a line of text.

------
vincentbarr
I wonder whether this has an effect on eyestrain or reading longevity.

------
igl
Red & Blue are sure good for your eyes! Professionals at work.

------
Aardwolf
Wow why don't they use this idea in printed books as well?!

------
AliEzer
Is there any scientific evidence supporting this?

------
ahmett
Note to author: does not work on medium.com

~~~
gnicholas
Thanks—the bookmarklet is just a first step. We are looking forward to
integrating with lots of platforms, including medium.com, which we read all
the time!

------
lnsignificant
I actually read everything on that page.

------
dsschnau
can i get this as a firefox extension?

~~~
gnicholas
We're working on native integrations, and we realize the bookmarklet is a
somewhat kludgy first step. Thanks for your interest!

~~~
deletes
I can't believe it but it is faster and more enjoyable to read with the
gradients. I can't get the bookmark to work with firefox. Extension would be
great!

------
40
Where is the link to the evidence?

------
jasallen
Works for me. Nice.

------
hrhmsorm
Wow! thats so cool!

~~~
kdbuck
Very cool. I just wish they called this "The Reading Rainbow" ;).

~~~
gnicholas
The original name was Read the Rainbow. Turns out there are still trademarks
on Reading Rainbow (also, advisers said the name should communicate the
benefit, not the appearance), so we changed it. How funny that your first
inclination was the same as mine!

------
armenarmen
Ok, this is awesome

------
achalkley
Wow.

------
marincounty
I think it's a great idea. Every technical book should start using it
immediately. There's nothing more depressing than cracking opening a computer
book that 500 pages of block typing. I've never known how you guys get through
some of those phone books?

It might be great for some fiction?

------
marincounty
It seems like most technical books are filled with a lot of extraneous
material. Could you imagine an author who used a certain color, like green to
highlight the important sentences?

------
contextual
I see an iOS app, but nothing for BlackBerry 10 users. Please consider us as
well. Thanks!

