Typeface for dyslexics

[kosal]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

I'm glad there's research and effort, but wonder if the brief could've translated into a more pleasing design, like how Frutiger handled OCR-B.

http://www.studiostudio.nl/en/project-dyslexie/

[Dunwich Type]

Ugh…they could have just made a few tweaks to News Gothic and got the same effect without making the font so damned hideous.

[russellm]

oh cripes. The typographic answer to orthopedic shoes, but even uglier.

[William Berkson]

Note there is no testing, just a bald claim. This kind of stuff seems to come out several times a year, with no testing or bogus testing. And none of them seem to have done their homework.

[Thomas Phinney]

Hey, there was "testing." They found that dyslexics made fewer mistakes with this typeface than they did with Arial! OMG! :)

Of course, this is hardly surprising, and one actually expects that many, perhaps most typefaces would perform better than Arial in this regard.

It didn't improve reading speed, btw.

So there is no particular validated reason to choose this typeface over, say, any other humanist sans.

Cheers,

T

[sans sleep]

Don't forget about Natascha Frensch - https://typography.guru/forums/topic/12527-forwarding

Correct me if I'm wrong, I was told that Rosemary Sassoon's Sassoon was designed for dyslexics as well.

SB

[Nick Shinn]

Speaking of fugly, here's something I developed back in the New Typography days, but never got around to publishing.
The premise was to design a typeface where every glyph was unique to the typeface.
(Yeah, I didn't get around to figuring out I and O.)
What a great theory for a dyslexic font!
Should I release it with the name Dyslexia?

[phrostbyte64]

Being dyslexic, I can tell you from personal experience that there is no way to develop a font that will solve problems with reading. I don't know if dyslexic think in pictures or not. I thought everyone did that. I can tell you that one of the main components of the "condition" is that things get re-ordered in the short term memory. I can't see the shape of the letters making any difference. I found this font to be mostly just irritating.

James

[Nick Shinn]

Sorry James, I was poking fun at the (no doubt well-meaning) makers of fonts-for-dyslexics, not at the readers.

[Matthew Dixon]

I sit firmly on the fence in terms of the usefulness or otherwise of these – I'm not dyslexic – but surely a typeface with a purpose, no matter how misguided we think it may be, is far more valid than one that looks pretty. Sheesh ... there are plenty of those already.

Anyway, Dr Rob Hillier has done quite a lot of interesting research into this field, and designed a typeface for dyselics called Sylexiad. The less generous among us may say 'wow, this is hideous' but then, that's hardly the point ...

http://www.robsfonts.com/sylexhome.html
http://www.robsfonts.com/Resources/Ultrabold_21.pdf

[William Berkson]

Matthew, thanks. I looked at and read a little about Sylexiad. I was surprised, given how often this idea is tried, that it actually seems to have something to recommend it.

[Nick Shinn]

…that's hardly the point…

But it is.
It stigmatizes the abnormal with ugliness, to put it bluntly.
Furthermore, it assumes that there is no readability benefit in a professionally polished (which you deride as "pretty") execution.
And it privileges the idea that good intentions trump mere functionality—i.e. there may be many already existing typefaces, designed with other criteria than readability for dyslexics, that would perform just as well if not better, but the scientist with the funding to make a New Font For The Reading Challenged can conveniently ignore those.

Jason Smith has shown that it is possible to have the best of both worlds, with Fontsmith's Mencap typeface.

[Matthew Dixon]

... stigmatizes the abnormal with ugliness ...

Not meaning to come over all 'form follows function', but our notions of what is ugly or beautiful shouldn't come into it if it helps someone to read (and perhaps, not being able to read effectively is more stigmatizing than being lumbered with an ugly typeface?).

Nick, you're right - the Mencap typeface is beautiful, but it addresses a completely different issue (learning disability vs dyslexia), and it does not address the 'needs' of a dyslexic readership (if we are to agree that a typeface can do this anyway).

It's not about designers ignoring the tried-and-tested (i.e. for non-dyslexic audiences) formula - the research suggests that there is a fundamental need for characters to not follow conventional lines - ruling out most typefaces already in existence.

I was being deliberately glib when I derided pretty execution, of course there's no reason why these shouldn't be professional and polished (and yes, even beautiful) typefaces. But we're all looking at them from a different perspective.

[Nick Shinn]

- the research suggests that there is a fundamental need for characters to not follow conventional lines - ruling out most typefaces already in existence.

Not the research, the theory.
The theory argues against symmetrical and transformably-identical shapes in simple sans serifs.
But there are gazillions of typefaces which already follow that principle (it's inherent in the traditional chirographic, serifed oldstyle), which have not been researched or tested.
In the mass, already existing typefaces can hardly be called conventional. One would expect they follow a bell curve of conventionality. Quite apart from most typefaces in existence, there are a substantial number that might be appropriate.

If I was designing a typeface for this readership from scratch, I would experiment with clean shapes, then varying asymmetric distribution of weight, and with various arrangements of "some serifs" (e.g. as in TheMix).

But has anyone ever tested TheMix for readability?
No, they test Arial, and then take off on their own tangent.

As Thomas says, what about the humanist sans faces?
Compared with Arial, they are unconventional.

[phrostbyte64]

Nick, no worries. I thought it was funny. Your Dyslexic font is interesting, by the way.

As to the theory, I wish them luck and hope it works, but I have my doubts.

James

[Chris Dean]

For those who didn’t stumble across it by accident (as I did):

http://www.ilo.gw.utwente.nl/ilo/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic...

There is a link to his thesis at the bottom of the page.

[Chris Dean]

Yet another example of typography as a science. Nor would I call it bogus.

[Matthew Dixon]

The theory (backed up by research of varying degrees of trustworthiness) argues against symmetrical and transformably identical shapes in simple sans serifs...

Yes, but our understanding of what is transformably identical is limited to our own perception - how identical does identical have to be before it becomes problematic to that particular audience? Is stress enough?

All I'm saying is, I'm not (along with 90-95% of the rest of the world) the best person to comment on the readability of Dyslexie or Sylexiad. I'm simply not the target audience. And if the do help (and it's a big if), dismissing them as ugly seems a bit much...

[DrDoc]

When we're putting it down as "ugly", though, we're also putting it down as ignoring some of the principles of typography that have been developed over centuries. I want to avoid a semantics argument, but it's my understanding that the primary concern of this typeface is legibility — the ability to distinguish between individual letterforms. The researchers who developed Dyslexie decided that the best way to do this is to emphasize the differences between characters, rather than make them follow the same rational construction. However, they accomplished this by applying the warp tool to a rationally constructed neo-grotesque

Many of the principles they "discovered" to aid legibility have been used by type designers for centuries, just more subtly. What we're arguing is that Dyslexie and other psychologist-developed typefaces do not accomplish their goals any better than many humanist typefaces do, and when a typeface has no sense of balance (as Dyslexie does not), then it loses readability — i.e. the ability to read it over long periods of time without experiencing eye fatigue.

[Matthew Dixon]

It loses readability to me. But it's not for me, and it may or may not be highly readable to it's target audience. The principles of typography that have developed over centuries are not principles that have taken any dyslexic readership into account.

To my eyes, Dyslexie might be ugly, but (again) that's hardly the point ...

[Chris Dean]

See also:

Klein, R.M. & McMullen, P. (1999). Converging Methods for Understanding Reading and Dyslexia. Cambridge: MIT Press

[vilbel]

Why not just test a lot of different typefaces on dyslectics? Could've been very interesting, also as a possible starting point for developing a typeface especially suited for dyslectics.

[quadibloc]

I do remember reading somewhere that there is no such thing as a dyslexic in China, because the Chinese characters are not designed with geometrical shapes that are used in upside-down and reversed forms.

Anyways, I am sure that stigmatizing does not come into this. Instead, no doubt, the makers of this typeface, who are safeguarding their intellectual property, are hoping that all school textbooks from now on will be printed in this new typeface. Think of the children!

Of course there may be existing typefaces with some of the properties of this one that would also be more readable by dyslexics. But they're probably display faces - whereas for this purpose one wishes to use an "infanta" design as the starting point.

For example, I doubt that schools would be willing to specify that textbook publishers use Fairy Tale from Comicraft to typeset their textbooks, even if it also meets the technical requirements.

[Jens Kutilek]

It loses readability to me. But it's not for me, and it may or may not be highly readable to it's target audience

It seems to be a common misconception that target readerships are separated groups (e.g. of non-dyslectics vs. dyslectics, visually impaired vs. normal vision people ...).

Unless you want to produce and use multiple versions of each sign, notice, book, etc. a typeface that performs better for a minority but worse for the majority is useless.

[hrant]

Matthew, go get 'em.
Don't let the fashion-mongers slow you down.

hhp