5 ms·
Ask HN: How many of you are skimmers?
I am sure that most of you read articles that you are interested in, the full article. You spend the 5-20 minutes it might take reading an in-depth article if you are interested in it, but for other articles, with curious headlines, or with articles that are just too long to read, do you end up just skimming them?
This is not to say that one article is more important over the other, but just that there are only 24 hours in a day and you cannot read them all; so skimming seems to be a viable option.
There are times where I do see a website with a good article, but honestly, I wish they would have a summarized version of the article they wrote.
This led me to create a feature on my own website at http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com called Quick Glimpse.
I talk about why more blogs should summarize their articles here: http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/summarize-blog
Looking off to the left of that article, you can see an example of Quick Glimpse.
I take the article, chop it up into about 3 to 5 short sentences which are presented as bullet points.
There are advantages and disadvantages for doing this. I know people spend less time on the website, but more people actually return back to the website to read other articles and are more likely to actually share the article on social media.
But I am curious why more bloggers aren't catching on to help people "skim" blog posts. Is the mentality: "I took the time to write this, you can take the time to read it"? If Google data is correct and a person spends an average of 2 minutes on a web page, I would rather make those 2 minutes count and give the person all they need in a summary.
What are your thoughts for providing people with a summary of your blog post? And if you are a skimmer, what exactly are you looking for when you skim an article? Do you get anything out of the article when skimming?
- brudgers 10y agoI look at an article and decide how much to skim or not to skim and maybe I read part of it in depth and skim other parts and then read more of it closely. Summaries don't fit my use case and don't satisfy my interest and are not as enjoyable to read...I read because I enjoy it. Good luck.
- mattbgates 10y agoThanks for your input brudgers. You must be selective though. I'm always curious to read every article, but I click based on headlines and the first two paragraphs usually to decide: Should I continue? I know its not always good to judge an article like that.. I remember reading a book as a teenager and it took like 5 chapters just to start becoming interesting, and it was one of the best books I have ever read, one that stuck with me throughout my adulthood. So I know it is not the best thing to do, but trying to read word in an article is just not something I can do every day. So I try to narrow down the ones I want to read. Just saying it'd be more helpful if they did have a summary with a few lines explaining or paraphrasing the entire article.
- brudgers 10y agoI gave up on trying to read everything I want to read. I read what I read and don't read what I don't and maybe bookmark a dozen things to come back and read a year and maybe read half of those and only when I get back to them in a few hours.
- ParameterOne 10y agoI like it. its like the sidebar on the front page of the wall street journal. And on your site I would rather read those little summaries instead of what you put under the headline on the main page I like all my information bite sized. and when i click to the main article i want the article short too.....and full of facts. I could read
- mattbgates 10y agoGlad to know there are others... nothing wrong with long articles, but a little helpful summary would be nice! I've yet to come across very many websites that do this, but I figured I'd offer something unique and different. Like I said, I'd rather you be on the page for 2 minutes, then leave, move on with your life, than not at all.
- ParameterOne 10y agoThis may or may not be helpful but I had an idea a couple years ago that was basically cliff notes for news. The program would read articles and parse the facts using keywords like "did,was,is, etc" which would by itself create a summary. Let me know if you want to work on that