Hot take: Websites or publishing platforms including estimated reading time in blog posts is ableist. It says, "We estimate that a normal person reads at this speed, and if you don't, we're going to remind you at the top of every post that you're not n...
-
Hot take: Websites or publishing platforms including estimated reading time in blog posts is ableist. It says, "We estimate that a normal person reads at this speed, and if you don't, we're going to remind you at the top of every post that you're not normal."
For users who need or want an estimate of reading time, their user agent (e.g. the browser or a browser extension) should do that, in a way that's tailored to them.
-
@matt I think this is a side-effect of scroll bars somehow being pushed to the sidelines. I remember when scroll bars were always displayed, and the “grabber” was sized proportionally to the portion of the page/document/etc. I don’t know who decided scroll bars should be hidden, and only a pitifully small number of pixels wide when they are displayed, but that seems to be the trend. Bringing back visible, useful scroll bars would give readers an immediate sense of the size of the content and how much of it they’re seeing right now.