I’ve been writing this post in fits, so it may be a bit disjointed. I started it on my flight home from CSUN, and continued to work on it on subsequent flights. Apologies if it’s a bit chaotic.
TL;DR: Typefaces designed to help dyslexics have no effect.
I’ll list information about the two typefaces that I am aware of (which are designed explicitly for readers with dyslexia), as well as notes from the talk at CSUN and a couple other examples.
The latest study to suggest that typefaces designed to aid reading for dyslexics had little to no effect was presented at CSUN this past week. As I noted on Twitter, I already had an idea what the results would be, and I came away feeling validated.
The study hasn’t been pubished yet and I saw its first general presentation. The study was conducted at Mount Allison University, a 2,500 student college with 215 full-time students with disabilities. 50% of those students are classified as having a learning disability.
General Tip
For those of us who build applications and sites with content of any length (whether instructions for shopping carts or rant-laden long-form articles), I have found a few techniques are generally agreed upon by the community (feedback is welcome!):
- Avoid justified text.
- Use generous line spacing / leading.
- Use generous letter spacing.
- Avoid italics.
- Generally use sans serif faces.
- Use larger text.
- Use good contrast.
- Use clear, concise writing.
This generally follows rules for good typography.
You may have heard that Comic Sans is easier for readers with dyslexia to understand, but so far that evidence appears to be anecdotal. Certainly not enough to warrant punishing all your other users.
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