It's not the first time we hear about special methods to read faster, and it definitely won't be the last. But the so-called Bionic Reading by type designer Renato Casutt has been making waves on the Web, thanks to its simplicity and apparent effectiveness. Now, with the help of a beta Chrome extension, you can test whether Bionic Reading works as advertised, right in your browser.
What is Bionic Reading?
Bionic Reading is a reading method created by Swiss type designer Renato Casutt. In essence, its strategy is to modify a text so that the first letters of each word appear highlighted. These “typographic marks” make our eyes move faster over the text, while the brain fills in the gaps. The brain “reads faster than the eyes”, increasing the efficiency of the whole process.
The theory is interesting, but what happens in practice? The official Bionic Reading page has several examples, all of them in English. There are also official plans to launch an extension, however, GitHub user 'ansh' beat them to it with a preliminary version of his Chrome extension Jiffy Reader, which installs manually.
How to read faster in Chrome with Bionic Reading
- Since it's a manual installation, the first thing to do on GitHub is to click the Code button, then Download ZIP.
- Extract the extension's contents to a temporary folder.
- Go to the Extensions section in Chrome and enable developer mode.
- Click the Load unpacked button and select the folder with the extension.
- The extension will install, adding a new icon to the extensions menu.
The available options are three: Activate reading mode, increase or decrease the height of each line. The reload icon restores the original values, and Toggle on Default loads Bionic Reading on all compatible sites.
So, how well does it work? Personally, I have mixed feelings. More casual articles and English content seem to adapt better to Bionic Reading's modifications, but then I decided to look for a couple of technical articles on Wikipedia, and they were impossible to read. As expected, opinions are divided regarding the usefulness of Bionic Reading. Try it yourself, and leave a comment!
Access the extension: Click here
Bionic Reading: Click here
