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Comment by mutagen | Hacker News Reader

I'm initially inclined to dismiss this as ugly and distracting, especially with the default colors being very similar to the traditional link/visited HTML colors. It would be worth exploring further if the claimed improvements are true.

I'd especially be interested in exploring ways to incorporate this into better designed color schemes so that it doesn't look so much like a unicorn vomited on the page while preserving the benefits and usability.

I'm also less inclined to dismiss improvements like these after misinterpreting the occasional email from colleagues lately. I don't know if it is assuming I know the full contents from the 3 line summary on mobile devices, processing too much email, or simply not paying enough attention but I've had to slow down and make sure I get things right.

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"Nice" colorschemes are probably less useful here since nice usually means harmonious. The point is to maximize your brain's ability to unconsciously distinguish them, so red/blue is a good choice if you need a lot of help. If you're more sensitive to colors, then the grayscale is probably a better choice.

Two colors can contrast while not clashing aesthetically.

Yes, I figured that was kind of the point of syntax highlighting in code.

An alternative bookmarklet would be to apply the gradient to the line your cursor is over, and just move your cursor at the pace you read lines.

that would be very annoying when reading on any touch based device. Even on a normal laptop - most people who can read well enough dont need to follow the text with the cursor anyways .. its just adds an unnecessary action that would work against the goal of this concept - speeding peoples reading up!

This is a great idea, a subtle mix of the gradients and some readers' select-a-few-lines-at-a-time habit.

Or, to mix in another idea (from philip1209) downthread: have the hover-effect add color-matched dots (or other glyphs) at the corresponding line-ends, currently under the pointer.

For me, that'd be completely unworkable.

Moving the mouse/cursor down the page line at a time to read? _Seriously?_

Applying the gradient when you select text might work. For some reason I already have a habit of obsessively selecting text when I am reading, and I've seen other people that do it as well.

Adjusting to something like the "Blues" color scheme seems to make things a bit nicer.

What I'm worried about is comprehension.

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