What a document owes to whoever reads it

Brigitte Bigi

Laboratoire Parole et Langage, CNRS & Aix-Marseille Université

The question

A page is read on a screen that is not the one it was drawn on, at a size its author did not choose, by someone who may not see it at all. What does it owe them?

Nothing is asked of the internet.

What is measured

Weight of a page, in kilobytes
What is loadedBeforeAfter
Stylesheets313171
Fonts4200
Icons, of fifty505

Measured on a page of eight screens, served over HTTP.

What is done

  • An icon is loaded when it comes into view, and not before.
  • A page downloads only the character blocks it shows.
  • What is drawn as a line takes the colour of the text around it.

What is read aloud

What an icon stands for is written on what holds it. A ground stands for nothing, and is never announced.

Every colour pair is measured: nothing is shown that cannot be read.

Read anywhere

The same document opens from a disk, with no server and no network: what it will need is gathered into it beforehand.

It prints as it reads.

In one line

A page that respects its reader weighs less, says more, and asks nothing.