You know those people who balance reading glasses half-way down their noses? Yeah, as much as it pains me to admit this, I’m one of those. My eyes aren’t what they used to be [and they didn't used to be all that great, to tell the truth].
So I was delighted a while back when Jon Strother [of #FridayFlash fame] mentioned a tool called Readability. Among other things, Readability provides a free add-on for your browser that will, “With one click, turn any webpage into a clean, comfortable reading view.” Suddenly all those blinky, beepy, flashy ads, banners, and badges crowded around the stamp-sized area holding the content that drew me there are eliminated while I read. All the sites with too-small text or too-little contrast between text and background are clear.
I installed it. I love it. I use it a lot. I recommend it. And recently, because of some behind-the-scenes tech work I’m doing for another site [which some of you might guess, but I'm not going to go into right now] I learned about some of the newer features from Readability. As a result, I have installed some of their code right here on this very site.
Now let me pause for a moment to say that I try from the get-go to make sites I work on easy to read. I routinely use dark text on a light background and frequently increase the default text size. [I don't have to wear my cheaters to read my own site.] I limit extraneous elements. Still, with Readability you can choose the font, size, and color-combination that you prefer when you read all the pithy or funny or heart-rending prose and poetry that you’ve come to expect from me.
So, if you’re viewing this as a single post [did I mention that Readability is designed to work with single posts?], and not using a feed reader or looking at the home page you should see the Readability tool just below my byline up there. I’ve installed it with three options: Read Now, Read Later, and Send to Kindle.
Read Now does what the browser add-on has always done, grabs the content from the post and renders it in a window with your custom settings. Read Later [subscription required*] adds the page to your personal reading list so you can pull it up later. Save to Kindle, well that should be pretty obvious. I don’t have a Kindle [yet]. Since that option is also free, I would love it if someone that does have a Kindle would try that and let me know how well it works for you.
Again, I don’t think you need Readability to read my site; I actually rather hope you don’t. But I’ll certainly understand if you want to, especially if you are sending to Kindle or if you subscribe to take advantage of saving posts [or some other premium options]. At this point, I have only one reservation. Because publishers earn a contribution each time Readability is used to read one of their pages, they have no incentive to embrace better design principles so readers don’t need such a tool. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if some pages got worse to drive traffic that way. [Yes, my eyes are failing, but my cynicism is healthier than ever.] I can only promise you that I will never EVER do that on my site. On the other hand, I’m sure their intent is that publishers need to make their content so compelling that readers will want to use a tool like Readability to manage their reading list with a consistent look and feel. I aspire to have compelling content.
*Note: Read Later [and other premium services] is available only to paid Readability subscribers.
Disclosure: I am a registered publisher so I may earn a small percentage of subscription fees if you use Readability on my site. I will never get rich from this. In fact, due to the way they calculate and pay commissions, I will probably never earn a penny from this.
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