Safety and accessibility
Have you ever considered the silent power of the typeface like the one you’re reading right now? Beyond aesthetics, fonts play a critical role in how we perceive and understand information. This goes for every sighted user, but some user groups are more affected than others – especially when fonts go wrong.
Font design often focuses on visual appeal or brand identity. Every now and then, someone claims to have invented The Accessible Font. So far, that has not proven to be true – one size doesn’t fit all. What we do know is that familiarity plays a significant role in font preference, and research shows that certain design features consistently improve performance for specific user groups. It is also true that some fonts are made for very specific use cases and would be very hard to read in longer text. For general use, the practical recommendation remains: use standard fonts. They’re familiar, consistent across devices, and their design features are well-tested.
Boring but true. And then, all of a sudden, something new is emerging from the world of high-stakes design: typefaces originally created for safety – proving to be also very good from an accessibility point of view.
When cars are driving accessibility
At first glance, designing for a car’s dashboard might seem worlds apart from designing for someone with dyslexia or low vision. But there are some common principles, like clarity, legibility, and unmistakable distinction, that are remarkably aligned.
One example is Volvo Centum, the custom typeface recently designed for Volvo cars. It’s primary purpose is to ensure that critical information on a car’s dashboard system can be read quickly, accurately, and effortlessly, regardless of driving conditions, ambient light, or the driver’s stress level. In a scenario where split-second decisions matter, ambiguity in a character can have severe consequences.
A shared vision of clarity connects safety to accessibility:
- Characters are designed to be easily recognizable even at a glance or from a distance, with high legibility.
- Similar-looking letters (like ‘I’, ‘l’, and ‘1’ or ‘0’, ‘O’ and ‘C’) are crafted to be distinctly different, reducing confusion.
- The enclosed spaces within letters (like ‘o’, ‘a’, ‘e’ and ‘c’) are kept wide open, preventing them from blurring at small sizes or low resolutions.
- Stroke widths are uniform, contributing to overall clarity.
- Unnecessary flourishes are removed to keep the focus purely on the letterform.
The features that are designed to help us keep safe on the road are the same ones that may support individuals with diverse abilities and needs. Even if no font in itself will ever be enough to remove barriers. But, a good font can for sure be a step on the way.
- For users with low vision, high legibility, good contrast and open counters mean characters remain clear and distinct even when magnified or viewed on lower-resolution screens. Careful differentiation of similar letters reduces eye strain and misinterpretation.
- One of the common challenges for individuals with dyslexia is differentiating between similarly shaped characters or experiencing letters “blurring” together. Fonts well designed for safety address this by prioritizing unique letterforms and ample spacing, making the text easier to decode and reducing cognitive load.
- Simple, uncluttered letterforms and predictable readability reduce the mental effort required to process information. This benefits anyone experiencing stress, fatigue, or neurodivergent conditions, allowing many users to absorb critical information more efficiently.
- As visual acuity naturally declines with age, the enhanced clarity and contrast of safety-focused fonts provide an advantage, improving the overall user experience for a rapidly growing elderly population.
What we learn from this is another aspect of the concepts of ”design for all” or ”universal design”: typefaces developed with safety in mind is designing for extreme conditions. Whether it’s the high-speed environment of a car or the unique processing challenges of certain disabilities, this approach leads to better design. When fonts are clear, legible, and unambiguous, they don’t just benefit specific user groups; they enhance readability and comprehension for everyone. Just as with many other parts of accessibility.
When selecting your fonts, make sure they don’t just look good, but do good.