I see this new Bionic Reading font popping up on my social media accounts lately. It is the one that bolds portions of many words in a way intended to help guide the reader’s brain through the text and provide a means of faster, in-depth reading comprehension.
“What do we want? With Bionic Reading, we aim to promote reading and comprehension of textual content in a hectic and noisy world.”
bionic-reading.com
This article on uxdesign takes a look at it and the recent reaction on Twitter. It also has a couple of comparisons between “regular” font and the bionic reading conversion.
I like the text and think it speeds up my ability to read and retain the information I have read. Reading is one of my main hobbies, and I read a lot. Not the 100+ books a year I have seen some folks claim, but I think my annual book count is up there. This means I can already read relatively quickly with comprehension. It felt like the font smoothed this out for me, as though it built a road between reading and processing.
With that said, I would be hesitant to jump into an entire book in this font just yet. If I read for an hour, does it tire my eyes faster? Would it give me headaches? Would that road it creates decrease eye/brain strain over time? I do not know and have not taken the time to test this myself, but I am intrigued.
Check out the links and share your thoughts. Do you like it? What would you think about this font in your next eBook?
Tiffany Shearn 