Taking back the control

The Bright Lines, as seen through 'readability'

Lately I came across Readability. It’s a bookmarklet (works only in FF, Safari and Chrome) that alters any website into a more readable one. It does so by presenting it in a book form. At a first glance I thought it as a nice  tool, but I wasn’t sure I was going to use it. Then I thought that it was a real good example that you as a user have more to say than you think.

We always accept the usability of the websites for what it is. If it’’s good, it’s good. If it’s bad it’s bad. But the frontend of the website is built on your computer, in your browser. You have a certain level of control over the HTML, CSS and Javascript.

The most common way to make a website better is by using ad blockers. Yes, some people do live of advertising, but I don’t think that means you should be obliged to see them if you don’t want to. Especially when they distract. The best thing about ad blockers is that it doesn’t require any knowledge of web development at all.

Another example is CoolIris that convert image pages of popular websites like Google Images or Flickr into a 3D wall of images.

A more techie Firefox plugin that I use is Stylish. I use it to add my own CSS to websites I regularly visit. Most of the time I use it to remove section that I regard useless with a simple display: none. A more powerful variation of Stylish is the plugin Greasemonkey. With Greasemonkey you can alter the websites with Javascript. And just like Stylish, you can publish your customization of the website through the plugin.

So that’s a reminder for me to see that websites are not cast in stone. Popular websites will on the client side be hacked by a small minority of users to cater their own needs. And if a site is really in need of improvement, plugins that help non-technical users would spread like wildfire.