A colleague of the author once observed that papers from first-year history students often feature blinding flashes of the obvious: (1) sweeping declarations that war is bad; (2) social inequality is unfair; or (3) that China is a big place. These sorts of papers sometimes begin with mind-boggling generalizations like "Throughout history, all mankind has fought for justice" (or some other impossible-to-prove statement). This article contains just such a blinding flash of the obvious: a general student approval of web-enabled course material, coupled with a deeply held concern about the "readability" of onscreen materials. It is an observation that results from analysis of student surveys, curricular planning, and instructional design, but nonetheless seems spectacularly obvious in hindsight. This essay draws attention to the issue of reading comprehension in teaching history with technology, to demonstrate the importance of the readability issue as reported in surveys of undergraduate students, and to highlight some relevant work from other disciplines. The survey of undergraduate attitudes about readability and the citation of work by other disciplines on the topic should emphasize, by way of contrast, the very lack of interest displayed in the literatures of historical pedagogy and technology enhanced learning. (Contains 27 notes.)