*An edited version has been published in the Los Altos Town Crier *
The pandemic, in a big way, has accelerated the pace of long-form content consumption for workers, professionals, and students alike, due to remote working arrangements and online distance learning.
Can you imagine that long-form reading fatigue could affect a normal person’s academic or work performance?
Now imagine someone who has a learning disability or visual impairment and struggled with reading. How would they be impacted?
Up to now, there has not been a tool designed to improve the cognitive efficiency of reading on-screen, and to make the process easier, faster, and more enjoyable for readers at all levels.
BeeLine Reader, a young start-up based in Menlo Park, California, recognizes the pain point of long-form reading fatigue, which affects multiple population groups, ranging from normal people, people with learning differences and visual impairment, to students coping with increased reading loads.
Improving On-Screen Reading Ability for All
Nick Lum, Founder, BeeLine Reader
BeeLine Reader’s Founder, Nick Lum, is a former Mountain View resident. Lum worked as a corporate lawyer before he embarked on his entrepreneurial journey as the Founder of BeeLine Reader. Because of his personal experience in dealing with reading fatigue, from reading legal and business documents on screen for many hours every day, Lum saw an opportunity to develop a solution that would make reading easier, by displaying text using eye-guiding color gradients. He teamed with his cousin, Andrew Cantino, a software developer, and launched a browser plugin that applies BeeLine’s reading technology to website text. This technology also benefits users reading downloaded PDFs or on mobile devices.
Primary functions of BeeLine Reader include: helping maintain focus while reading, decreasing visual fatigue, and improving the accessibility of text for people with learning differences or visual impairment.
“BeeLine Reader takes the visual tracking aspect of your eye movement while reading and automates it. So your brain spends less efforts in keeping track of where your eyes should be. Instead, it allows you to allocate more cognitive resources to other reading-related sub-tasks, such as comprehending and analyzing what you’re reading,” said Lum.
According to Lum, readers can customize the way how BeeLine Reader operates, from choosing the color gradient that they like best to deciding which websites it should run on.
“For many people, BeeLine Reader fundamentally changes their ability to read. After they’ve experienced this new, easier way of reading, they don’t want to go back to reading plain black text again,” said Lum.
In addition to functioning as a browser plugin and an app, BeeLine Reader also licenses its patented technology to companies of all sizes. Licensees have found that their users who activated BeeLine Reader’s feature ended up reading more on their platforms than other users who didn’t.
Creating Social and Human Impact
BeeLine Reader’s simple technology goes beyond the accessibility benefits for readers who get fatigued due to heavy-reading loads. The company has received feedback from users with learning disabilities like dyslexia and ADHD, indicating that BeeLine Reader is extremely helpful in making reading easier and more enjoyable.
In addition to social impact, the technology indirectly helps those who might feel that they are never good enough of a reader to see their potential as efficient readers. This type of encouragement can boost a person’s self-esteem and help them achieve better work or academic performance.
“A great example of BeeLine Reader’s impact is echoed through our successful pilot program with Blackboard Ally, who strives to provide a more inclusive learning for all types of learners. The feedback from the pilot was so successful that Blackboard Ally ended the pilot early in order to expedite a full release of BeeLine’s feature to all users,” said Lum.
“Feedback like this is what keeps me energized — nothing is more satisfying than getting an email from a BeeLine user whose life has been changed by our simple tool.”
BeeLine Reader has won several notable awards for social impact, including a recent award from the MIT Solve Global Competition. Its technology was one of a handful selected for the Digital Inclusion Global Challenge, out of hundreds of applicants worldwide.
Previously, BeeLine Reader has won awards from the UN Solutions Summit and The Tech Museum of Innovation (now The Tech Interactive).
Looking ahead, BeeLine Reader will continue to grow their impact globally and in local communities. To learn more about BeeLine Reader’s tools or partnership opportunities, visit www.beelinereader.com
Photo courtesy: BeeLine Reader
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