"Scrolling" is a unique action which was created in this era, specifically related to digital screens. People are easily got satisfied by this simple, infinite action. However, do we really care enough about the content showing on the screen, or just the joy of scrolling and getting infinite new contents? Is the action of scrolling distracting us from paying attention to the whole content? Are we losing patience for reading because of our behavior?
In order to explore the relationship between "scrolling" and "reading behavior", I created a reading speed calculator based on a news website template. I randomly chose several articles from news website, and deleted the videos and images from them intentionally. The reading speed is based on how much time the user spends from the top of the page to the bottom.
Test goals:
Observe different people's behavior when reading news on digital screens.
To see if people will lose patience or be distracted by text-heavy contents.
Explore the relationship between "scrolling" and "reading".
To create a game-like experience with the score.
Findings:
"scrolling" is a low cost action which satisfies people, compared with physical books.
People prefer reading the content they are more interested in more carefully.
Someone is "skimming" keywords, while someone is reading through every word.
The intention and the context of reading news matters.
Next iteration:
Create a mobile version
Change the layout and make it less distracting.
To test if keeping the calculator visible will affect the behavior.