Can You Read It Now?
Can You Read It Now (or CYRIN) evaluates the text on any web page for visual readability and tells you how to improve the aspects that need the most work. CYRIN is great for template and theme creators and anyone who can edit CSS and wants to make their text easier to read.
For updates on upcoming features and links to related material, follow @CanYouReadItNow on Twitter.
CYRIN in Action
Click on the calipers to see how CYRIN scores the current page. The score is decent, but not perfect (that's ok). CYRIN's scores are based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, so higher scores mean that it will be easier and possible for more people to read your content, but anything rated 7 or above can be adequate.
To see more scoring examples, install the bookmarklet and try it out on some of the following pages:
- Great Readability
- Not-So-Great Readability
Future
In the long-term, it would be useful to show historical scores for a page or scores across different browsers. With this new data you could see how your changes to styling have affected your score.
CYRIN is open source & on GitHub
Development Details
The core analysis engine of CYRIN is open source and released on GitHub under the MIT License.
Three sources of inspiration for CYRIN have been Readability (which CYRIN borrows some code from), Ross Bruniges' 24 Ways article self-testing pages with JavaScript, and poorly-styled blogs everywhere.
