Asymmetrica adds extra spaces to website text to improve reading comprehension

http://qz.com/452848/this-article-has-been-perfectly-formatted-for-maximum-reading-comprehension-2/?

by ivank • 11 years ago

10 7 11 years ago

subtenante• 11 years ago

It's interesting, but I find peculiar the choice of the words which are overspaced. I would expect works like 'that', 'from', 'with' far more important for chunking than 'to' for instance.

IanCal• 11 years ago

Might be a placebo-like effect for me, I'd have to have a really good setup to experiment with whether or not it helps or is really noticeable without knowing beforehand if it's been applied or not (or applied randomly instead).

This looks wrong. The extra gaps look like pauses and they're not in sensible places for pauses. That then made me think of someone doing a Christopher Walken impression.

tobias2014• 11 years ago

If you intend to try the plugin: "Please create an Asym account to activate the extension. It's simple and we don't give your email address to third parties! We'll send you a confirmation email with a link to activate your account, so please make sure your email address is valid and correct."

I wonder if the addition of spaces is done client side or server side (and as such would send all your website texts to them)?

ivank• 11 years ago

The source code in the Firefox extension suggests it's all done server-side.

pbowyer• 11 years ago

Do read their privacy policy before installing: http://www.asym.co/privacy

Especially the paragraphs beginning "In order to provide" and "When you visit". There's a lot of data being collected.

taku_pl• 11 years ago

Those extra spaces feel like I'm walking upstairs and I suddenly miss a step. Completely throws me Knocks me out of the rhythm every time.

Although I spent some time as an editor, so that's probably it.

irridia• 11 years ago

We've removed some irrelevant boilerplate from the Privacy Policy, and updated the FAQ. We collect as little as possible, though we completely respect anyone's privacy concerns and decisions. We welcome feedback since this is a critical part of building our users' trust.

Yes, the processing is performed by our server-side language models, and is never stored.

Ken info@asym.co

Asymmetrica adds extra spaces to website text to improve reading comprehension

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