#dyslexie

[writing2changetheworld]

My new favorite font. Dyslexie

I love it so much! It's so accessible!

Wanted to share!

[polldermodel]

Heb je dyslexie?

Ja, gediagnosticeerd

Ja, niet gediagnosticeerd maar wel duidelijk

Misschien??

Nee

Heb je dyslexie?

Ja, gediagnosticeerd

Ja, niet gediagnosticeerd maar wel duidelijk

Misschien??

Nee

Voting ended onMar 7, 2024

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday 

FONTS FOR DYSLEXIC READERS

This weekend I was introduced to several typefaces that are designed specifically for readers with dyslexia. My personal interest in type design derives partially from my own difficulty with reading. My preference for a reading font is one that is similar to or derived from Hermann Zapf’s Optima. The default font for Tumblr is supposedly ABC Favorit, but it looks a lot more like Helvetica to me, a typeface that is also easy for me to read. Those of you who have followed us for some time will have noticed that some of the features that make our posts distinctive are the use of bolding and typographic hierarchy, as you can see in this post. As the principal style editor for our Tumblr blog, I realize now that this is because it helps me, as an individual with reading difficulties, parse out the essential elements of a blog post.

Several fonts have been developed recently to address dyslexic reading issues. Such fonts manipulate various aspects of letter form and spacing to enhance reading accessibility, including relative body weights, thickness and thinness of line, spacing between letters, adjustments to ascenders and descenders, and adjusting and deforming shapes and slants to help prevent the perception of letters reversing or swapping places. Most, if not all, are san serif. Shown here, from top to bottom, are:

Dyslexie, designed by the Dutch, dyslexic, graphic designer Christian Boer in 2008. Features include heavier line thickness at the bottom of most characters; slight downward slant on the curvature of the letters; elongation or diminishment of stems on some letters such as 'h and 'n'; added space between letters.

Gill Dyslexic, also designed by Boer. It aims to reduce the symmetry between letters, making them easier to distinguish. Like Dyslexie, the base of each letter is heavier than most other fonts, helping to orient the letter correctly.

OpenDyslexic, created by American designer Abelardo Gonzalez and released as a free and open source font in 2011. Shares many of the same design elements as Dyslexie (which has led to some conflict with Boer), such as heavy-weighted bottoms, unique shapes to each letter to prevent reversing and swapping, and wider letter spacing.

Read Regular, designed by Natascha Frensch at the Royal College of Art in London. Each character is designed to stand on its own and work together with its previous or next character. Ascenders and descenders are longer than most fonts to ensure distinction. Spacing within the o, e, a and u is enhanced and the openings in e and g are kept from visually closing in.

Lexia Readable, designed by Keith Bates at K-Type. This font has been called "Comic Sans for adults." Much like the other fonts, Lexia features long ascenders and descenders combined with generous letter spacing and asymmetrical lowercase b and d to help distinguish letters.

Sylexiad, designed by Robert Hillier, a Senior Lecturer at Norwich University College of Arts, and based on his PhD dissertation conducted on the font. Sylexiad features long ascenders and descenders, light weight, uniform strokes, perpendicular design, and generous inter-word spacing.

Despite all the laudable effort spent on these designs, however, no independent research has found that any font significantly improves reading speed or comprehension for dyslexics. This 2013 study, for example, found that Helvetica, Courier, Arial, and Verdana were the best fonts for dyslexics, the same fonts of choice for many efficient readers. Specially-designed typefaces may not really matter. It appears that san serif fonts with generous spacing between letters and words are most efficient, whether you are dyslexic or not.

Still, I do find the fonts shown here to be rather readable.

View more Typography Tuesday posts.

-- MAX, Head, Special Collections

[iced-souls]

I HAVE FINALLY FINITO’D THE CHARACTER SHEETS FOR BBB!!!!!

Here’s part one

I love them heheheheheheheheheheheheheehhehehhe—

[certainpeacestrawberry]

I know "you" can be used as plural, but I just can't use it for anything else than addressing a singular person.

[fibrielsolaer]

There’s no font that helps with dyslexia

Hello dreamers, I only ever sign on Tumblr when I want to rant angrily about something and remember not to pollute my art profiles with it.

There’s a really bad problem in humanity that I haven’t found an existing term for, let me know if you have one, but I’m going to call it egocentric substitution.

It’s when somebody doesn’t understand something, because they’ve never experienced it, so they take something else they think they do understand, and which is supposedly similar, and pretend that’s the something they don’t.

Is that a lot of confusing words? Well, this journal is about an example of it that hopefully makes it clear how it works.

“Dyslexic typefaces”

The creators of so-called “dyslexic typefaces” such as Dyslexie claim that they help dyslexic people read by, essentially, avoiding making glyphs that look too similar. Examples are 6 and 9. Flip ‘em around, they look the same, people mix ‘em up sometimes.

And while this can reduce reading errors for everybody, it will not affect dyslexia beyond that, because that’s not how dyslexia works.

It’s not “dyslexia” just because you misread a word or letter. It is, in fact, completely normal for people to sometimes mix up letters or words, especially when they’re first learning to read. Non-dyslexic children, or adults who were formerly illiterate, very commonly make the kind of mistakes these “dyslexic typefaces” claim to help solve.

But dyslexia isn’t a reading disorder. It’s a language disorder. Dyslexic people have trouble processing any form of language, whether it’s written, spoken, or signed. It doesn’t matter how clear or distinct it is.

(Dyslexia is not known to affect overall intelligence other than by disrupting language processing.)

There’s an old saying: “The name is not the thing named”. I think that sums up dyslexia pretty well. If you put a bunch of flowers in front of someone and ask them to pick the rose, a typical normal person will find it pretty quickly, while a typical dyslexic person will take a while to remember what “rose” refers to. They immediately recognize the flower itself, absolutely, but dyslexic people do not readily match a real-life thing with what it is called.

It’s not that a dyslexic person can’t tell the glyphs 6 and 9 apart because they look too similar, but rather, a dyslexic person has trouble processing which actual number is written as which glyph. If they see the glyph 6, they are just as likely to mistake it for 9, 4, 5, 2, 38, or any other number that might make sense in context. They are seeing the glyph 6 just fine. They just have trouble connecting the written glyph 6 to the actual concept of the number six.

Ergo these typefaces do nothing to help with dyslexia - there is no typeface that can, except by making it easier for everybody to read.

Hell, telling dyslexic people they’re mixing up the glyphs in their brains is probably making it harder for them by basically gaslighting them.

So in short

Most non-dyslexic people can’t understand how dyslexia works.

Many non-dyslexic people sometimes mix up a few letters or words when they read.

Non-dyslexic people have fooled themselves into thinking this completely normal reading quirk is dyslexia.

Non-dyslexic people pat themselves on the back for making typefaces that might help with these non-dyslexic reading errors, and fraudulently claiming they do something about actual dyslexia.

That’s egocentric substitution.

[friendoftheelves]

Saw this, I hate it

It is a great representation of visual dyslexia and it is worth applauding as a representation of visual dyslexia the person deserves credit for showcasing visual dyslexia yet it portrays it self as an example of all types of Dyslexia and that is appalling

Visual dyslexia is a small rare subsection of dyslexia by showing this and just labelling it as dyslexia you imply that it represents all dyslexia

Dyslexia is already hard enough to understand, hard enough to explain, hard enough to pinpoint we don't need people to create content that so badly represents us

By misrepresenting all of dyslexia as being like visual dyslexia you invite dyslexics to feel like imposters, it's why 13rw was so harmful. You are essentially encouraging people to feel invalidated

We get that every day when we have to fight to be recognised as a minority and as disabled we don't need it from people trying to help

What's most upsetting is this could've been great if it labelled it self as visual dyslexia

If you just have the average version of dyslexia and hate this, and feel invalidated by it, that's okay. It is a terrible representation of the average version of dyslexia

But if you are a visual dyslexic and want to use this to show what your visual dyslexia is like, go ahead, it's okay. It's a great teaching tool for visual dyslexia

Just remember that this one example only showcases visual dyslexia when you look at it or use it as an example to others

Credit to the original person, I don't know who they are, it is perfect and wonderful for showcasing visual dyslexia

[luckywolfsbane]

I mock Comic Sans to no end, but if it means people like me will have an easier time reading my book, I will print every copy in that font with paper that's more of an off white if it kills me.

Actually, all joking aside, I want my books printed in a dyslexia friendly way. The font doesn't have to be Comic Sans, it can be anything so long as it's dyslexia friendly.

Actually, I would love to print them in that Dyslexie font I ran across the other day. That would be cool as heck.