Google Search wants to let you know how long an article will take to read before you click it

The ‘Reading List’ or ‘Read Anywhere’ feature in Chrome is quickly becoming one of my favorite features, but not because I actually read stuff that I save – well, not until recently. Instead, it’s because saving articles for later is the missing link between News, Discover, Chrome, and Google Search that the company has recently been experimenting with.

In what appears to be an effort to cater to those who would like to read in Chrome but have a specific time budget, Google Search is A/B testing indicators at the bottom of each web link that show how long it would take to read the content found therein. As you can see below thanks to Brody Clark Consulting, who first found this, the “less than 5 minutes” chip shows that the results seen here would be rather quick reads comparatively.

That’s not all though – in addition to the specific time indicator, Google is also testing one that simply says “Quick Read“, without putting an average on it. There’s no doubt these are determined based on the average reader’s speed, so the time it takes you to read it may be higher or lower than what’s listed if you’re the type of person to take your time or speed through and glimpse information from an article or web link.

I’m not seeing the information chip appear on my end, so I’ve not been targeted for the test, but let me know in the comments below if you have been. I’m interested to hear whether or not you think this would be useful day-to-day, and if you think its significance is tied to Reading list at all.

Kudos: Android Police