Dyslexic fonts don’t help dyslexia, and the internet’s idea of how dyslexia works is wrong.
https://dyslexiaassociation.org.au/do-dyslexia-fonts-work/
But the new fonts—and the odd assortment of paraphernalia that came before them—assume that dyslexia is a visual problem rooted in imprecise letter recognition. That’s a myth, explains Joanne Pierson, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Michigan. “Contrary to popular belief, the core problem in dyslexia is not reversing letters (although it can be an indicator),” she writes. The difficulty lies in identifying the discrete units of sound that make up words and “matching those individual sounds to the letters and combinations of letters in order to read and spell.” In other words, dyslexia is a language-based processing difference, not a vision problem, despite the popular and enduring misconceptions.
Researchers put the font to the test, comparing it with two other popular fonts designed for legibility—Arial and Times New Roman—and discovered that the purportedly dyslexia-friendly font actually reduced reading speed and accuracy. In addition, none of the students preferred to read material in OpenDyslexic, a surprising rebuke for a font specifically designed for the task.
The idea of making fonts more legible is good, but it doesn’t help dyslexia specifically.
Dyslexia-friendly fonts typically have larger x-heights and wider spacing to improve letter differentiation and reduce visual crowding. They may also have unique letter shapes or heavier weights to make them more legible.
Found here, which goes deeper into how dyslexic-friendly fonts help people with dyslexia (and yes - comic sans, one of the world’s most hated fonts, is a dyslexic-friendly font)
I will go on hating Comic Sans for other reasons.
Not an expert, but the way I understand it is that, instead of b and d looking the same, and p and q looking the same, all rightward facing loops are italicized, and all leftward facing loops are left very round, so a brain that has trouble with mirroring images won’t get confused. They also use serifs, so a capital I and a small L aren’t similar.
Weirdly enough, I, someone without dyslexia, find these fonts so difficult to read.
Opposite for me, I use these fonts where available despite not being dyslexic. I can read just fine but it can strain my eyes to focus since I have really bad astigmatism and also an immune system disorder that causes inflammation in my dominant eye, a lot of stuff can trigger flare ups so I try to reduce eye strain wherever possible.
I use e-ink whenever I’m not doing work. Easier on the eyes.
Others have shared the general design ethos behind fonts for people who experience dyslexia, just adding to the conversation, there is little to no evidence of their effectiveness, however:
The authors also comment that there is no harm or reason to discourage children from reading in Dyslexie, if they wish; however, a cautionary note is also voiced that, as with all controversial therapies, resources expended for Dyslexie should not “shift focus … from interventions that have been proven effective.”
(Source: International Dyslexia Association)
It likely doesn’t hurt, but dont expect a miracle cure. I personally use Atkinson Hyperlegible (Next + Mono) because I appreciate the lack of ambiguity between certain characters (Il1|O0). More for coding/technical tasks than reading.
Came here to say this and also promote the same font.
I read a few Google Scholar articles and ce up with the same conclusion. Basically it boils down to larger font size, sans serif, clear differences in similar letters (iliji etc).
Plus one of the dyexic fonts is huge by default and using it plus scalling it down broke other things like emails.
Hyperledgeable or Arial if using default MS fonts (work) set to slightly larger scale is just as good.
I also made a “bionic text” version of hyperledgeable, but the science also calls bullshit on that. I still like it though.
I use that atkinson font everywhere i can, love it. Not dyslexic myselt.
Can I ask if you can provide a link or three or so to refer to relevant dyslexia friendly fonts?
I happen to have a very mild form of dyslexia, where either written or typed, I’ll sometimes mix up my lowercase ‘u’ and ‘y’
I always catch the mixup within less than a second and correct it before I ever post, but yeah I’m kinda interested in this question myself.
I’m guessing they mean the standard dyslexia font that’s been passed around for some time, https://dyslexiefont.com/en/, or maybe since this is Lemmy, this one that has open in it’s name https://opendyslexic.org/
The Braile Institute also has one that I like a lot (but, I don’t have dyslexia, so can’t say how it compares to the others)
FYI the link you shared seems to be a Google tracking link. The destination URL is https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont/
Blah, I hate that on Android Google has started commandeering all links and converting them. Thanks for the heads up, updated my link.
Neither am I, so I’ve only heard about them. I’m a big fan of the concept, and better accessibility for everyone, though.
However, if anyone needs opinions on a decent mono space font with ligature support I can offer one up!
Iosevka is my favorite one.
mono space font with ligature
I always wondered what the point of that is, so I’m keen to hear your opinion! (Although I already sense where this goes given the topic.)
When writing programming code, markup, or any other structured text of that sort, it is easier on the eyes and to parse mentally when vertically and horizontally aligned. At least when reading English characters left to right, top to bottom. (I don’t read much else in that capacity).
Whereas with the written word, letters flow into each other, to give a better reading experience.
As for ligatures, having != (not equal), <= (smaller or equal to), == (equal), === (extra certain we’re equal as we messed up the implementation of ==, but need backwards compatibility) or similar operators show as the symbols they represent (while still maintaining the correct spacing), is more comfortable when ingesting large amounts of code, to me at least.
ligatures, having != (not equal), <= (smaller or equal to), == (equal),
Oh yeah I forgot about those. Those make perfect sense in a coding font, but I have seen “fi” or “ff” etc. together in 1 character cell and it’s completely unusable.
I haven’t experienced that myself, closest would be the Norwegian æ, but that is its separate letter on the keyboard, like ø and å. I can see why it’d be awful in some contexts though.
It looks like that one targets low vision more than dyslexia so it lacks things like heavy bottoms. However, they are both easier to read than typical typefaces.
Similarly, the US govt used Calibri for a short time since it’s more accessible than other typefaces. But as with anything intended to help people, Trump axed it
I have used both of those for students, I am not dyslexic myself but kids have said those have helped.
And to answer OP (again not dyslexic so maybe someone with direct experience could chime in): highly depends on the font/person but mostly making each letters shapes unique to help even if not at first make it possible to learn the uniqueness so it can be read without mixing up letters.
For example: u, w, v, and y not being the same height/weight on each side, each being slightly asymmetric, etc.
Here’s an hour-long lecture on the subject, if you’re very interested
I use Lexend on my KDE desktop. It’s designed for dyslexics. Also, just a nice looking font.
Edit: I haven’t been diagnosed but I’m pretty sure I have dyslexia.
