this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 96 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What the fuck did you do to your text? It's impossible to read.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Ah. Seems like the effect varies from person to person I guess. Are there any studies on it? I'm kinda interested now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

I tried searching for research on it, but only found results claiming this didn't work... Not actual scientific research, but better than "we think this should work, so now we'll try selling it"

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

It's easier to scan and for the brain to process

[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My brain does not like. It's stunlocked asking "why is this bold?" over and over again even though I already answered.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I’d never get past this. If a website forced this on me I’d probably stop using it, otherwise I’d just override it with CSS.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

[citation needed]

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm a visual designer, tricks like this are often used to increase legibility.

Like how the brain scans the first and last alphabet and guesses the word with a blurry sense of what's in between. It helps cognition.

This pattern will help the eyes jump from one word to the next and older people will have an easier time following through the sentence.

Ofcourse the actual reason here could be different, since that can be done with even less effort.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'm a visual designer, tricks like this are often used to increase legibility.

If multiple people are complaining that its annoying and less readable, then I don't think it's working

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

A key part of visual design is knowing that the users don't know what's best for themselves. They usually stop complaining after 3 months which is proof that you are correct and they are wrong!

(sarcasm rate: 1 - ε)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

It's not like they have an option to switch to

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yep it's not the correct context to use it unless there are accessibility requirements. For example the tool is frequently used by people who are in the neurodivergent spectrum

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

That makes sense, I suppose it could be useful for some

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

No it's not.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Is this post about Github seemingly detecting an incorrect licence? The project was relicenced in a later commit, so I dont think this behavior is entirely wrong.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Plus, the license was only changed on a secondary branch. The default branch still has the MIT license. The text at the top isn't "this is the license file you have open" it's "the repo is licensed under this" so it's correct behavior but bad UX. It would be most user-friendly to show repo license and then also say "this branch has an invalid license, beware shenanigans"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

I didn't even realize that! Their official distribution page links to the "secondary branch", which is actually an outdated tag branch. The license was changed a month ago.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What should it do instead? I think the only reasonable action would be not showing it if the licence file was changed.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

IMO it should be re-recognizing it every time the license file is changed, but only showing a "click here to learn more about different licenses" would also be much better

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

I see you using bionic reading.
Does it really help at all? Genuinely curious.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not OP, i never heard of it before, but looking at the screenshot I just find it distracting.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It forces me to read everything as though I'm reading Shakespeare, except the cadence never really comes. Now I feel itchy and angry at my monitor for showing me this

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I guess that that’s all that matters.

Did it take time to get used to or did it work straight away?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

straight away! IDM (e.g. LeaF, Aphex Twin) take up half of my music preference so maybe that's related

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I feel like you'd be able to tell from the screenshot, if it has an effect on you.

My brain tends to overanalyze individual words, which is great for spotting typos, but awful for reading speeds. This highlighting feels like it helps my brain to quickly go from word to word, and not get stuck on them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Reading the comments on some reddit posts, it seems like it matters how your brain handles words - like there's different types of ADD/ADHD with respect to reading (which I guess makes sense considering inattentive ADHD vs hyperactive).

Just reading some examples, for me it seems to help keep my brain on track and continue reading the words, instead of normally skipping words, losing your place, and requiring to reread the paragraph.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Seems to have the same effect to me, very weird.

Normally I tend to skim text pretty quickly, skipping words, but this makes my focus snap back to read every word, very funky feeling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yea, kind of nice for not missing detail... might have to adopt this for school

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

the thing where it actually helps is if you're "one word speed reading" (eg. http://onewordreader.com/). Then it's easier to rapidly focus your eyes on each word, without having to follow a rigid timer. But if you're reading normally it probably doesn't help

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

i hate that. makes reading a freaking race

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

wow I just read the whole NSFW train copypasta in 16 seconds flat

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I might be able to read this on light mode but, on dark mode + that layout it's hard

not as bad as the 1 word speed reader but still it's almost impossible to focus on. I'm impressed that you are able to

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

uhhhh I’ll take that as a compliment! 😇

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Sorry the typo on there was fully accidental, and a bit ironic concidering the context lmao

and yea if it works it works!