Dyslexia-friendly fonts typically have larger x-heights and wider spacing to improve letter differentiation and reduce visual crowding. They may also have unique letter shapes or heavier weights to make them more legible.
Found here, which goes deeper into how dyslexic-friendly fonts help people with dyslexia (and yes - comic sans, one of the world’s most hated fonts, is a dyslexic-friendly font)
Not an expert, but the way I understand it is that, instead of b and d looking the same, and p and q looking the same, all rightward facing loops are italicized, and all leftward facing loops are left very round, so a brain that has trouble with mirroring images won’t get confused. They also use serifs, so a capital I and a small L aren’t similar.
Weirdly enough, I, someone without dyslexia, find these fonts so difficult to read.
Dyslexic fonts don’t help dyslexia, and the internet’s idea of how dyslexia works is wrong.
https://dyslexiaassociation.org.au/do-dyslexia-fonts-work/
But the new fonts—and the odd assortment of paraphernalia that came before them—assume that dyslexia is a visual problem rooted in imprecise letter recognition. That’s a myth, explains Joanne Pierson, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Michigan. “Contrary to popular belief, the core problem in dyslexia is not reversing letters (although it can be an indicator),” she writes. The difficulty lies in identifying the discrete units of sound that make up words and “matching those individual sounds to the letters and combinations of letters in order to read and spell.” In other words, dyslexia is a language-based processing difference, not a vision problem, despite the popular and enduring misconceptions.
Researchers put the font to the test, comparing it with two other popular fonts designed for legibility—Arial and Times New Roman—and discovered that the purportedly dyslexia-friendly font actually reduced reading speed and accuracy. In addition, none of the students preferred to read material in OpenDyslexic, a surprising rebuke for a font specifically designed for the task.
The idea of making fonts more legible is good, but it doesn’t help dyslexia specifically.
Can I ask if you can provide a link or three or so to refer to relevant dyslexia friendly fonts?
I happen to have a very mild form of dyslexia, where either written or typed, I’ll sometimes mix up my lowercase ‘u’ and ‘y’
I always catch the mixup within less than a second and correct it before I ever post, but yeah I’m kinda interested in this question myself.
I’m guessing they mean the standard dyslexia font that’s been passed around for some time, https://dyslexiefont.com/en/, or maybe since this is Lemmy, this one that has open in it’s name https://opendyslexic.org/
The Braile Institute also has one that I like a lot (but, I don’t have dyslexia, so can’t say how it compares to the others)
It looks like that one targets low vision more than dyslexia so it lacks things like heavy bottoms. However, they are both easier to read than typical typefaces.
Similarly, the US govt used Calibri for a short time since it’s more accessible than other typefaces. But as with anything intended to help people, Trump axed it
FYI the link you shared seems to be a Google tracking link. The destination URL is https://www.brailleinstitute.org/freefont/
Blah, I hate that on Android Google has started commandeering all links and converting them. Thanks for the heads up, updated my link.
Neither am I, so I’ve only heard about them. I’m a big fan of the concept, and better accessibility for everyone, though.
However, if anyone needs opinions on a decent mono space font with ligature support I can offer one up!
Iosevka is my favorite one.
I have used both of those for students, I am not dyslexic myself but kids have said those have helped.
And to answer OP (again not dyslexic so maybe someone with direct experience could chime in): highly depends on the font/person but mostly making each letters shapes unique to help even if not at first make it possible to learn the uniqueness so it can be read without mixing up letters.
For example: u, w, v, and y not being the same height/weight on each side, each being slightly asymmetric, etc.
