Overview
There are a few popular implementations of speed-readers online. But most are dated, clunky, or exclusive to mobile. So I decided to take a stab at building my own.
Here is the result of a weekend hack:
Inspiration
Spritz was the the main inspiration for this project (for a live demo check out Readsy or watch a Tech Crunch interview with the founder).
Some great features in this implementation:
- Variable display duration based on word length and position
- Optimized word’s center alignment based on length
Some shortcomings in this implementation:
- Quoted and parenthesized text is difficult to identify
- Few or poor controls
- Little or no customization
- No progress indicators
- No traversal through original text available
- No alternate modes for scrolling, chunking, or sliding text.
With these notes, I started hacking away. I gave myself a weekend to complete a working demo.
Try using my reader to re-read what you just read
:p
(You can use the controls to pause, skip, and modify speed. Hit escape to reset if it gets buggy when skipping)
Check out the full demo.