Typeface for dyslexics

[quadibloc]

I may have been unfair - the emphasis on protecting intellectual property in this face may have been to prevent imitations which lack some of the important beneficial features of it, rather than an aim to get rich. But that is the impression created when this issue is placed front and center.

[William Berkson]

There are different questions here. One is whether introducing more asymmetry produces a face that those with dyslexia like better. A second is whether the asymmetry actually helps dyslexics read better. A third is whether such an asymmetrical face has to be ugly. The answer to the first, with Sylexiad, seems to be "yes." I don't think the second, key question has a good answer. I'm pretty sure the answer to the third is "no".

[russellm]

Do people with dyslexia have the same difficulties reading hand written texts as with printed ones?

[phrostbyte64]

First of all, dyslexia is a diverse condition. Second, it can affect how the printed, written and spoken word is processed. I can't speak for all of those with dyslexia, but this has been my experience. Third, this theory is flawed. I don't care how much of the alphabet someone has behind their name, their theory is incomplete, at best. The determining factor is how a child is taught to read. That is the direction research should take. But, if we must make a font we think will help children with dyslexia learn how to cope with the printed word, please, let's make it one that has some aesthetic appeal. As dyslexics we have our wires crossed. We are not blind or stupid.

James

Did I mention that having dyslexia makes typing a pain? Left and right don't have a lot of meaning and spelling is troublesome.

[gusnicklos]

I love the concept. I'm dyslexic and agree with some of the findings. I do see type 3 dimensionally. Things aren't that lumpy through my eyes though.

[Rob Mientjes]

All I see is a severely tortured Arial, waiting for the killing blow.

With that amount of research, all they could do is mutilate Arial in a font editor? That's the lazy way out. Like many others in the thread, I think something can be made — for that group of dyslexics who suffer from the symptoms stated in the Twente University research — that is both more legible for dyslexics and more attractive as a design. As Nick says, "It stigmatizes the abnormal with ugliness, to put it bluntly." I think it can be done better.

(Note that I'm not throwing myself into the mix: I am a decorative designer, focused more on beauty as a function than legibility as the sole goal. I'm not a technical researcher. I like researching by throwing things out there and seeing what sticks.)

[lukejonesme]

I severely doubt mainstream media is going to use that font in anything, so don't worry about it.

Sorry, I know I'm a buzz kill but there are so many terrible typefaces out there making bald claims, it's all just water under the bridge. As long as a client doesn't come along and ask me to use that, I'll survive.

[hrant]

Ah, but if a client asks you to design for dyslexia, what do you do?

hhp

[Chris Dean]

Depends on the context. Textbook = function trumps aesthetics = use a font that you personally might find “terrible” (subjective) but your audience may appreciate. And you never know, if asked to look at a specimen sheet, persons with dyslexia might find it “ugly” but after reading it for a few hours and noticing a significant difference in their performance they may start to like it. In it’s function lies it’s beauty.

[russellm]

Function never trumps aesthetics. Aesthetics is about appropriate design. Not pretty design.

When it comes to type, literacy, readability and legibility, ugliness is very much a factor. What do we really mean by ugly anyhow? (Who even asks that question?) With type, it surely isn't just the opposite of "pretty". Good design stopped being about decorating functional things with flowery doodads a about a century ago.

Aesthetics have a real function. It isn't just about making things pretty. It is about making them work. There are things which, on a fundamental level, are either ugly or attractive which just about everyone in the world would agree are either ugly or attractive. What is the reason for that? I think it is something hard wired into the brain and is part of how we make sense of the world around us (in a similar way we use analogies like "Hardwired"). A tidy room is more attractive than a messy one because it works. You can find a place to sit down for starters. If you say you prefer messy rooms, that probably means you like the rooms you yourself have made messy because you understand the order things are in and they feel more like they belong to you after you've imposed you own "order".

If the disambiguation of characters in the font this thread is about is helpful to anyone, imagine how helpful it would be if it wasn't achieved in such a sloppy manner.

Where and for what would this font be used? And how often? Will there be some sort of literary ghetto for dyslexics where they all get to read like "normal people" thanks to science, but will unfortunately be even worse off when faced with the other 99.999% of printed matter that will still be set in traditional fonts because they will look strange to them? Or, will "normal people" have their reading abilities degraded by being forced to read only this stuff? Will packaging in Canada be printed in English, French and Dyslexic?

I think that 'science' as applied to typography is way off the mark 82% of the time. People expect to be able to design a magic bullet in the form of typeface to solve some problem that may in the end have nothing to do with typefaces per se. Seems to me that it's a matter of processing more than what's being processed. Perhaps some of the time it is a question of how children are taught to read. I can remember having a very difficult time telling the difference between 'b' and 'd'. (and this was equally true with my own hand writing (printing) as with my Dick and Jane readers, so right off the bat, I say the whole thing smells like BS) I was a kid with an active imagination. After giving up on trying to read an assignment, but still staring at the page to look busy, I'd start making up stories about the letters on the page. They really were characters. I saw that 'B' and 'b' face the same way but the the 'd' faces the opposite direction than "D", his "parent. Little 'd' was a rebel. Could pick him out in a crowd... And that's one little strategy I came up with. Certainly not anything ground breaking. It's just a personal anecdote about how I got over a hurdle. But, it is an example of a different approach to disambiguation that doesn't require such an ugly-arsed font. (It would seem I should have done very well indeed in grade school, what with all those mimeographed homework assignments. They must have been a breeze to read through.)

Maybe it is as simple as not using a font as devoid of character as Arial or Helvetica, as was suggested earlier, but we may never know. Why is it that folks with next to no knowledge of typography and design apparently prefer go out and invent new wheels that try and understand the ones that are already here.

So, I ask again... Can dyslexics read hand written (printed) text any better than Arial? It certainly doesn't suffer from the same lack of distinction between characters as Arial. Right?

[russellm]

@Hrant, Ah, but if a client asks you to design for dyslexia, what do you do?

You could supply some good typography set in a half-ways decent humanist font. Or, you could sell some snake oil.

[hrant]

To me those two choices would be the same. :-/

hhp

[russellm]

Then you're the man for the job.:p

[quadibloc]

@russelm:
Good design stopped being about decorating functional things with flowery doodads a about a century ago.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that aesthetics and functional design are one and the same.

A thing can look ugly because it was put together in a hurry and still work.

And something can look beautiful and not work - and that is changed not one whit because fashions have changed from rococo to Swedish Modern.

Aesthetics deals with what we see on the outside, and function has to do with what's doing the work on the inside. The inner workings of many mechanical devices do have a functional beauty, but for functional reasons - keeping dust out of the gears - they're still covered.

The typeface for dyslexics under discussion does indeed seem to have been thrown together quickly. A typeface could have its characteristics and still also look more like a conventional typeface - for example, there seems no reason to dispense with serifs. But the asymmetries that the function requires likely will compromise the attractiveness of a typeface somewhat, even so.

@russelm:
Or, will "normal people" have their reading abilities degraded by being forced to read only this stuff? Will packaging in Canada be printed in English, French and Dyslexic?

I suspect that the goal would be to have textbooks in the elementary grades all be printed in dyslexic-safe type, so that dyslexia would no longer compromise the process of learning to read for its victims.

Once they have learned to read well, then problems with the shapes of individual letters would no longer obtrude, since they would be reading whole words rather than making out one letter at a time to try to sound out what word they are seeing.

[hrant]

> Then you're the man for the job.:p

I just wish I had a dyslexic alter ego. ;-)

hhp

[russellm]

I just wish I had a dyslexic alter ego. ;-)

Oh Dog, that's funny.

[russellm]

@quadibloc I suspect that the goal would be to have textbooks in the elementary grades all be printed in dyslexic-safe type, so that dyslexia would no longer compromise the process of learning to read for its victims.

Barking up the wrong tree. The fundamental geometry that makes it possible to confuse a 'b' with a 'd' (for example) remains the same. It's possible for a kid to confuse the two letters in his own hand writing. How is a font with some randomly generated irregularities any an improvement? Having been there, I don't believe there is any merit at all in this approach. Some paradigm shifting required.

I very much doubt that improvements in reading accuracy (if any in actuality) due to the disambiguation of letters has anything what soever to do with the ugliness of the font. That is just sloppiness, which comes across to me and, I hope to other people, if they take a second to think about it, as a sign of disrespect and condescension in the very same way that the well meaning people who supplied those appalling orthopedic shoes of days gone by figured "gimpy" kids are -- Well, they're "gimpy" and don't need attractive footwear. The same effect (of each letter being distinct from others) could have been achieved in a decently designed font - And largely it has been achieved in a very large number of existing fonts, including many of those in text books used to teach children to read (though now-a-days, that isn't always the case. Most of the text books and workbooks kids are given by their schools these days are absolute crap. That anyone could learn to read from them is remarkable. Children are exposed to so many appallingly badly designed and written text books and workbooks in schools that is a real shame on our generation.)

... "Victims"???

really?

Victims of sausage-mill like school systems perhaps, but so is everyone.

[quadibloc]

@russelm:
How is a font with some randomly generated irregularities any an improvement?

Well, it is true that the irregularities would have to be the same in all reading material. So one typeface, or one family of typefaces, would presumably have to be used in all the textbooks used in the early grades, until students master reading.

The idea isn't simply "use Typeface X", it's "change the fundamental letterforms in the alphabet", so that the irregularities of the Dyslexie font are added to the definition of "what makes a b" and "what makes a d".

Since dyslexia isn't a problem where the Chinese writing system is used, a writing system reform for countries using the Latin alphabet would presumably be effective in eliminating dyslexia as a problem in those countries. Thus, I have to presume that writing system reform, at least in effect, and not simply an "orthopedic" typeface, is the goal here.

[russellm]

Who says dyslexia isn't a problem with Chinese writing systems?

http://www.nature.com/nchina/2007/070131/full/nchina.2007.070131-4.html
http://www.tomspender.com/2011/03/dyslexia-in-china/
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2591/is-it-possible-to-be-dysle...

Just a small difference in perception. In china they call it idiocy. Idiots are idiots. you can't help them, hence it's not a problem worthy of investigation.

[Té Rowan]

Is it easier or harder to teach, say, kana to dyslexics than non-dyslexics? (Assuming that dyslexics are a uniform group...)

[quadibloc]

@russelm:
The articles you cited, which do show that a condition analogous to dyslexia exists within the Chinese linguistic community, also note that that condition is distinct from what we know as dyslexia, because it involves a deficit in a different part of the brain.

The two conditions should not be given the same name; that is a violation of specific etiology, a useful rule for defining medical conditions, because the cure for a disease usually depends strongly upon its cause.

[russellm]

You can't insist on an absolute adherence to a precise definition of a word in one breath and let words mean what ever you like with another

Dyslexia is not a disease any more than pregnancy is one.

nor is it a medical condition.

[hrant]

Actually I know for a fact that you can get infected with dyslexia
if you reply to an email where the "b" and "d" have been swapped...

hhp

[russellm]

yes, but don't tell that to quadibloc

:o)

[phrostbyte64]

Dyslexia is not a disease any more than pregnancy is one.

nor is it a medical condition.

Thank you Russellm :)