You know those "Reading Time: 20 minutes" lines people put on their articles?

[tal@mastodon.social]

You know those "Reading Time: 20 minutes" lines people put on their articles?

They just make me feel bad. Because I can't read that fast anymore.

What benefit are they intended to be?

#accessibility

[talksina@mastodon.uno]

@tal I was considering placing "time reading" in my stories.
It is for average readers, to have an idea such as "so, it's long, let me read it later when I have more time, now I'm in the bus"...
But the number can vary. For example I read with voice synth, being blind; and I have a high voice rate. But when I use Braille to read, I might be slower, or faster, depends on what I read.
I'm curious to know which criterion has been used but IMHO every person should consider their timing.

[tal@mastodon.social]

@talksina I think I get the rough idea, and it does seem like it would be a nice thing to add (I would have added it myself), but I'm starting to question if there are any actual benefits. Or if it hurts more than helps, on balance.

By the way, since another response has brought it up, how well / badly do progress indicators work, in your own experience?

[talksina@mastodon.uno]

@tal For a blind user, progress bars in "time to read" aren't useful at all, because to focus the bar (if it's accessible) you move the screen reader cursor from the text. Then, if it's with an assertive announcement telling you how much you have read, it interrupts the reading as well and you get distracted.
In this case I prefer [title / date / author / category / reading time].
It hurts rather than helping? Might be. "It's long, I have no time now, I'll save for later" then you forget.

[tal@mastodon.social]

@talksina thanks for the explanation. I think another issue that happens for me is, "oh this is just a short read, I should finish it" even if it's already obvious that I'm not going to get any value out of it

[talksina@mastodon.uno]

@tal the value in a short or long read, depends on writer. You can be very verbal and say nothing, while being short and giving all information needed. Btw, generally, I use "reading time" to monitor how long the article is. I often place the block and read in preview, then remove it when publishing. Then consider there are lots of bloggers placing "keyword stuffing" in there, when their info should just last a couple lines.

[talksina@mastodon.uno]

@tal Sorry, I assumed the word was known out of web environment. "keyword stuffing" is when a creator uses a single word/sentence too many times, to force search engine to prioritize an article.
For instance,
"reading time: is it useful? We're discussing reading time real use cases to see if placing a "reading time" block is worth the effort. Reading time is a function used for.." And I've been soft. Because I have encountered worse posts. Luckily nowadays it seems engines penalize this slop.

[tal@mastodon.social]

@talksina I know exactly what you're talking about, the original slop.

And to your previous post, I think spoons might be a more useful measure, if it wasn't just as elusive.

[talksina@mastodon.uno]

@tal I personally find the reading time, useful in order to optimize my reading routine.
If I need an information included in a very long content then, I try to summarize it through a LLM model then go in-deep later. Understand me, if transports change their timetable I need to know the morning routes, not that the railway station is blocked due to the [random event]. If I want to know about the event I go elsewhere.