Dyslexia, fonts and finding out what works

By Malin Hammarberg

Accessibility Expert & Senior UX Designer, Funka Foundation

I’ve inherited my dad’s dyslexia.

I have both a Bachelor of Engineering and a Master of Engineering. My dyslexia has rarely been an obstacle – except perhaps when I thought a cheat sheet was a good idea whilst chairing a panel; I’ll come back to that.

My dyslexia isn’t constant. Some days it’s worse; sometimes it even varies during the course of a single day. When I’m tired or stressed, my reading and spelling get worse.

How my dyslexia works

I misread things sometimes, skip words or read words other than what’s written, and I read worse aloud than I do silently.

When my son was little, he loved dinosaurs. I used to read the names out loud to him – and even today, years later, my misreadings live on in our family. Giganotosaurus, for example – I called it Gigantosaurus, which is apparently a completely different dinosaur.

Two dinosaurs, a Giganotosaurus and a Gigantosaurus. Giganotosaurus tells the other dinosaur that it is a Gigantosaurus, which confuses the other dinosaur. Illustration.

Recently, I moderated a panel discussion. I had a cheat sheet with the agreed questions, the participants’ names, roles and companies. I – who often speak in front of people – I completely stumbled when trying to read from it. Next time, the panellists will have to take my questions as they come. No cheat sheets.

My spelling is a mess. I tend to put spaces in the middle of a word, or just before the last letter. I join words together that should be separate. I miss whole words. The funny thing is that I spot these mistakes in other people’s writing – because misspelled words are harder to read – but in my own writing? No chance. The brain sees what it expects to see.

My typing is at its worst in chats and text messages with colleagues and friends when I try to be quick – which can sometimes make it really hard to read and sometimes completely wrong.

A dialogue with speech bubbles.
Yeey got a new flight to cph, then to paris, then to dallas

I’m arriving at half past seven in dallas

You mean Dulles, I hope?

dulles… haha sorry

Short words are the worst. “which”, “through”, “the” – I put all my energy into the long, complicated words and then I miss checking the simple ones.

I rely on the red squiggly line under misspelled words. The problem is that sometimes I spell things so wrongly that I end up writing completely different words – and then the spellcheck doesn’t help because the word is technically correct. Just wrong. It doesn’t catch words that are written separately, joined together, or missing either. That’s where AI has actually become a great support for me – for that kind of mistakes.

This is my experience – but dyslexia looks different for different people.

I still enjoy reading

It might sound strange, but I feel that reading keeps my dyslexia in check. The more I read, the easier it gets. And I’m looking forward to all the wonderful books I’ll be reading this summer.

Text-to-speech and audiobooks? Some people love them, but they don’t work for me. I’m too restless – and suddenly realise I’ve stopped listening.

Vision, contrast and zoom

When my eyesight gets worse (arms too short and over 40), my dyslexia gets worse. Blurry letters are even harder to read. I love my glasses – plus they’re stylish and make me look extra smart.

Contrast also plays a big part. Poor contrast makes text harder to read, whether it’s down to my eyesight, my dyslexia – or a combination of both.

I never change the font myself, but I often zoom in; I adjust it until it feels readable.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution

In accessibility, we know there is no solution that works for everyone. That’s why we build flexibility. We give users choices. We trust their needs.

But when it comes to so-called “dyslexia fonts”, something strange happens. Suddenly, a font is expected to work for everyone with dyslexia.

But … that’s not how it works!

I met a user with dyslexia who preferred Comic Sans. Comic Sans! The font all designers love to hate. But for them, it worked. It was familiar, easy to read, and they’d been using it for years.

Text: This is what the Comic Sans font looks like.

And that’s the point. We read faster with fonts we’re used to – our brains have already learnt those patterns.

“Dyslexia fonts” – what does the research say?

There are fonts marketed as specially designed for people with dyslexia – OpenDyslexic, Dyslexie and others. They have thicker lower strokes on the letters and unique shapes that are supposed to “prevent letters from being turned upside down.”

But it doesn’t work.

Dyslexia is a phonological processing disorder – it’s about how the brain links letters to sounds. ‘Fixing’ how letters look completely misses the point.

Study after study shows the same thing: specialised fonts offer no improvement in reading speed or accuracy. Participants often prefer standard fonts such as Arial or Verdana. And when Marinus et al. (2016) investigated why Dyslexie sometimes seemed to help, it turned out to be down to the spacing between the letters – not the special letter shapes. When they matched the spacing in Arial, the difference disappeared.

What actually makes a difference, according to the research? Increased character spacing. Line spacing. Text size. Good contrast. Shorter line lengths. And – a font the user is accustomed to.

Give the user control

So instead of forcing a “magic dyslexia font” on people – give them the tools to adjust things themselves. Character spacing, line spacing, text size, font, contrast, zoom. Trust that they know what works for them.

I don’t use any special aids. Others use ruler tools, text-to-speech, or coloured filters. Let the user be in control.

But selling a font as the solution to dyslexia? That’s just as unhelpful as overlays – pure snake oil.