Hump Day: Bionic Reading in communities

[Jordan Miller]

 

Happy Hump Day, team!

We are inching towards releasing our latest stable version, 4.7. 

It includes a ton of awesome new features for both self-hosted clients as well as those on our standard plans (where we host). 

You'll be seeing a lot of content discussing the new release, along with its features in the near future, but until then sink your teeth into these:
 

 

 

 

 

By the way... did you read all that pretty quickly? 

I recently stumbled upon Bionic Reading and wanted your thoughts on whether communities would benefit from integrating a tool like this. 

Bionic Reading is described as "a new method facilitating the reading process by guiding the eyes through text with artificial fixation points."
 

In a world where peoples' attention spans are seemingly shrinking, this might be a valuable addition. 

Or not? Maybe we shouldn't reinforce people needing to speed through content. 

I'd love to know your thoughts on this and whether you'd like to incorporate Bionic Reading into your community.

While I've got you, check out updates made to the platform in the last week - scheduled for a pending release in the future:

Quote

- Fixed an issue where checking an archived topic for new replies when you ignore other members may always show a 'new' post has been created.
- Fixed an issue where rank progress would still show in profiles when no ranks exist.
- Fixed an issue with the Zapier Extension when PHP was running in CGI mode.
- Fixed an issue where top posters in the topic statistics section may show in the wrong order.
- Changed the poll behaviour to allow everybody to view the poll result of closed polls.
- Improved the email editor to show the full email name while editing it.
- Fixed an issue using the ban filters in member group promotion rules.
- Added support for PHP 8.1.
- Fixed an issue calculating the next renewal date when upgrading between Subscriptions that may use a different renewal period (i.e. monthly vs annually).
- Fixed an issue with announcements when loaded outside of the framework.
- Fixed an issue embedding some external content when PHP 8 is used on Windows/IIS when a storage location is absolutely defined.
- Fixed an issue where the members block may show spammers, banned and validating members.
- Fixed an issue where toggling editor source mode may cause errors with certain blockquote html.
- Fixed an issue where setting the member for a stock action could fail.
- Fixed an issue with viewing member points/badges in AdminCP if either had been awarded by an application that has been deleted.

Looking forward to hearing what you think!

[nodle]

Maybe it's just me, but the bionic reading did not change my reading pattern at all. I just ended up reading it at normal speed. In fact maybe even slowly since the darker contrast to lighter contrast makes you pause more while reading. I understand what they are aiming for, but I preferred the normal paragraph in the link above. Maybe it's just me though. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by nodle

[Markus Jung]

It took me longer to read and understand what I just read. 

[Ryan Ashbrook]

35 minutes ago, nodle said:

Maybe it's just me, but the bionic reading did not change my reading pattern at all. I just ended up reading it at normal speed. In fact maybe even slowly since the darker contrast to lighter contrast makes you pause more while reading. I understand what they are aiming for, but I preferred the normal paragraph in the link above. Maybe it's just me though. 

 

1 minute ago, Markus Jung said:

It took me longer to read and understand what I just read. 

This is interesting, because I'm actually experiencing the same in this instance, but when I came across this the other day I actually did read the example text faster. I wonder if weight and size somehow contribute?

[Chris Anderson]

This Bionic font might be appealing to a segment of one's audience but likely not all.  It would be interesting to see if you could provide a toggle to change the display font and size.   

[Daniel F]

I was much faster and it was easier to read on my mobile phone. 

[Jim M]

7 minutes ago, Daniel F said:

I was much faster and it was easier to read on my mobile phone. 

Same here. Even with a few bad word breaks

[Ramsesx]

1 hour ago, Jordan Miller said:

Looking forward to hearing what you think!

If it's for cloud only, it's fine for me.

[opentype]

9 hours ago, Jordan Miller said:

Looking forward to hearing what you think!

Typographer’s nightmare. 

[Morrigan]

It reads like things were supposed to be more emphasized so I would stop to emphasize it more in my head. NGL I prayed you did it on accident as it was extremely annoying to read.

 In a way it felt like reading a bad poem in iambic pentameter.

[Davyc]

It actually hurt my eyes.  It's not normal nor natural and it appears that someone somewhere decided this would be a good idea and call is 'bionic' - sorry, I don't have bionic eyes and if I did I doubt that emphasising parts of words would improve my reading speed.  I was actually very happy to reach the end of the text as it became painful at the end.

Sorry, it doesn't work for me, but then I'm an old git and prefer traditional over modern 😉

 

[Marc]

2 hours ago, opentype said:

Typographer’s nightmare. 

My first thought when I read the topic was "I bet opentype would hate this", then read your reply LOL

 

[Ocean West]

For a novel of text posted in a forum I would rather opt for something like this, where reader could click and choose to speed read the text. 

https://spritz.com or https://swiftread.com

Alternatively would be cool if you could invoke quickly based on OS the text to speech for it to just read you the post.

Most of these options obviously are not ideal for every post especially with code snippets. 

[Ocean West]

and for a second when I read it I thought it almost looked like a ransom note. 

[Matt]

[Jordan Miller]

18 hours ago, nodle said:

Maybe it's just me, but the bionic reading did not change my reading pattern at all. I just ended up reading it at normal speed. In fact maybe even slowly since the darker contrast to lighter contrast makes you pause more while reading. I understand what they are aiming for, but I preferred the normal paragraph in the link above. Maybe it's just me though. 

Appreciate you weighing in! Maybe it's a case of getting used to? Or do you think this would never be something you find useful? 

For me I can see both sides. It's a bit in your face, but I did find myself able to read a little faster I think. 

[My Sharona]

It could read it either way, fast or slow. But then again, I am a graduate of the Evelyn Wood school.

[Jordan Miller]

23 hours ago, Ryan Ashbrook said:

This is interesting, because I'm actually experiencing the same in this instance, but when I came across this the other day I actually did read the example text faster. I wonder if weight and size somehow contribute?

Ahh so maybe if the bionic reading font was smaller it might help increase the speed? 

[Nathan Explosion]

So, what are you guys managing to do with the time you've saved reading these items faster?

Edited June 9, 2022 by Nathan Explosion

[Chris Anderson]

12 minutes ago, Nathan Explosion said:

So, what are you guys managing to do with the time you've saved reading these items faster?

I imagine for some folks it would be NSFW so its best we don't delve too deeply into this subject.

[Luuuk]

15 hours ago, Davyc said:

It actually hurt my eyes.  It's not normal nor natural and it appears that someone somewhere decided this would be a good idea and call is 'bionic' - sorry

Yeah. I got a headache just looking at the text. It distracted me so much that I had to "undo" the change in my mind to proceed... I doubt it has anything to do with the font weight/size.

[Chris Anderson]

All jokes aside, not everyone visually processes things the same way when it is in a small, medium, or large format.  A one size fits all approach will leave some folks at a disadvantage. 

If someone has less than "normal" vision, it can be quite challenging to comfortably read everything that is presented to us as we visit one site after another. It would be nice if sites running this software suite could be the exception to the rule. There may be value in offering a variety of different fonts instead of being locked into one. Doing so would likely increase the amount of content actually read and reacted to, increasing overall engagement.

If one font appealed to one and all there wouldn't be thousands of free or purchasable fonts out there.  A vast majority of these fonts are created to be aesthetically pleasing, not for increased readability. There are some fonts that might work far better for some portion of your members, as it stands today, we can't readily offer them an option.

If your site is geared more towards educating, then things get more complicated.  People learn in a variety of different ways. Some like to read content, some like to hear it, and some want to visualize the material being presented, and many want a combination of all three at their fingertips.

Having an all-text site leaves many people out in the cold. Having a built-in ability to hear text would be great for those that want to give their eyes a break or are severely sight impaired.

So, I'm not sure if @Jordan Millerwas being lighthearted in offering up the Bionic font for discussion or was trying to strike up an earnest conversation around fonts and how they can be better utilized to serve our communities.

[nodle]

11 hours ago, Jordan Miller said:

Or do you think this would never be something you find useful? 

Not really. Not for me or my board.

[Jordan Miller]

15 hours ago, Luuuk said:

It distracted me so much that I had to "undo" the change in my mind to proceed...

Can you expand on this 😆. 

[Jordan Miller]

14 hours ago, Chris Anderson said:

All jokes aside, not everyone visually processes things the same way when it is in a small, medium, or large format.  A one size fits all approach will leave some folks at a disadvantage. 

If someone has less than "normal" vision, it can be quite challenging to comfortably read everything that is presented to us as we visit one site after another. It would be nice if sites running this software suite could be the exception to the rule. There may be value in offering a variety of different fonts instead of being locked into one. Doing so would likely increase the amount of content actually read and reacted to, increasing overall engagement.

If one font appealed to one and all there wouldn't be thousands of free or purchasable fonts out there.  A vast majority of these fonts are created to be aesthetically pleasing, not for increased readability. There are some fonts that might work far better for some portion of your members, as it stands today, we can't readily offer them an option.

If your site is geared more towards educating, then things get more complicated.  People learn in a variety of different ways. Some like to read content, some like to hear it, and some want to visualize the material being presented, and many want a combination of all three at their fingertips.

Having an all-text site leaves many people out in the cold. Having a built-in ability to hear text would be great for those that want to give their eyes a break or are severely sight impaired.

So, I'm not sure if @Jordan Millerwas being lighthearted in offering up the Bionic font for discussion or was trying to strike up an earnest conversation around fonts and how they can be better utilized to serve our communities.

Appreciate you weighing in. In theory, one could clone a theme and name them according to what font they use and voila! Kind of clunky but it could be a quick way to accomplish what you suggested.

Also yes I was being lighthearted about the Bionic Reading, but serious at the same time. I was genuinely curious what our community would think, and if it opens the door to a larger discussion around UX and fonts than great!