Note that there still have been no studies on its efficacy. At worst, it is a great font to avoid ambiguity between characters.
This is nowhere near as good as the Open Dyslexic font. It looks weird, and I’m not dyslexic, but damn it makes me able to read so much faster!
I find it ironic that their website has extremely low contrasting colors making it very hard to read.
(Look at the top left for the worst example)
I find this harder to read than almost any other “normal” font. I wonder if I have some other reading impairment I’ve never been aware of - having recently discovered I’m also not neurotypical
To be honest, studies around whether this font is actually easier to read for people with dyslexia haven’t shown that to be the case. At least, that’s what I remember from reading about it in a Dutch skeptic magazine (Skepter) some time ago. So if you have dyslexia and find this font harder to read, that doesn’t have to say anything about you.
EDIT: Oh, right. They publish their articles online.
I actually changed my Anki to OpenDyslexic a couple of months ago! I changed it again when Atkinson Hyperlegible Next came out, but I agree that OpenDyslexic makes reading a breeze.
My only grievance with OpenDyslexic is that I don’t think I could send reports with this font without pushback. On the other hand, I have sent multiple reports using Atkinson Hyperlegible and nobody has ever said a thing.
I wish there was an open font that tries to do the same thing, but with an aesthetic that wasn’t reminiscent of comic sans.
You’re looking at it, the one linked In the op lmao
I like how that font disambiguates glyphs that often get confused, but I found it to be pretty hard to look at, honestly. I think the main issue might be that the line thickness appears to be uniform at all parts in all letters.
The Hyperlegible web site makes no mention of dyslexia, only visual impairment. Those are two totally different issues.
Well yes but beauty standards for typography run counter to accommodating for dyslexia, especially for sans serifs. Similarity in shapes, curves, weights, and stroke width are seen as beautiful, but they’re exactly what must be given up for more accessible typography.
Someone else in the comments here did mention Bionic Reading though, and there’s a free alternative in Fast Font, which has a gradient of weights for each word from black for the first letter to thin for the last one. Might be something to consider
But comic sans is funny
This looks like the font used on shroom tshirts
I wonder how it works. Maybe it has to do with the intentional varying of the sizes of holes in letters, and the lopsided lines so one can’t be confused as another.
While dyslexia is actually a cluster of related issues, a common one seems to be with dimensionality. Basically, the reader’s brain assumes the objects are 3 dimensional. When the eyes make micro adjustments, the letters don’t rotate, since they are 2D. The brain misinterprets this as them rotating, or moving. This is perceived as them flickering or moving, in the corner of your eye.
There are several ways to break this effect. I suspect the shape is intended to mess with and slightly overload the depth sense. Strong colours can also disrupt it. E.g. via a coloured filter or glasses.
I have been using this font as the default font on my personal laptop and I am more than happy with the way it looks and reads.
A couple of years ago I tried using the original Atkinson Hyperlegible (the one published a couple of years ago, before “Next”) on GNOME and my settings didn’t quite work. I had scaling at around 100% and increased the font size a little bit because I was having a hard time reading the font (the irony!). You inspired me to try again, but now with Atkinson Hyperlegible Next!
It’s also aesthetically pleasant which is a big plus.
Not for readability it isn’t
Coolness! I like the bionic font, but it’s more “just for me” than anything. This looks like a great default.
Well i was just mentioning bionic, but the link goes to the OP’s subject
I dont get how thst don’t works. Surly it can’t know the word in advance and auto bold the first three letters?
I tried to get it working on Kobo and it dosnt seem to. Perhaps it was me though.
Could be very advanced use of ligatures
You can also download it at Github without giving up your email address or agreeing to some dumb TOS.
I have been using this font on my eBook Reader for years. It’s great. Highly recommended - it might look a little bit goofy at the first glance, but it really is more readable.
I see a lot of people discussing this font and mentioning OpenDyslexia.
I couldn’t find research on Atkinson Hyperlegible. It says it was recently this year, I also couldn’t find any research on effectuveness when I looked through the website. If I missed it I aplogize and would love to learn more if someone wants to take the time to link/copy the applicable info. My hope is since it’s a non-profit group focusing on helping those with vision problems it has been well developed tested for effectiveness. Certainly if someone wants to try for themselves please do. Before going all out though say converting large volumes of things or implementing for a classroom I think asking questions would be prudent.
Unfortunately OpenDyslexia does not actually help those with this learn disability! The authors of the below article do a good job of discussing why and the harm misconception/misuse of products like these can create.
Wery JJ, Diliberto JA. The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy. Ann Dyslexia. 2017 Jul;67(2):114-127. doi: 10.1007/s11881-016-0127-1. Epub 2016 Mar 18. PMID: 26993270; PMCID: PMC5629233. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5629233/
Here is some more info and strategies for those instered in regards to dyslexia. https://childmind.org/article/understanding-dyslexia/
Thank you so much for taking the time to research and share you findings.
As to Atkinson Hyperlegible, I suppose its merit could be, at most, making it harder to confuse characters. This blog post shows how Atkinson Hyperlegible makes it easy to distinguish:
- Capital I, lowercase l, pipe |, numeral 1: I l | 1
- Capital O, zero: O 0
- Capital B, numeral 8: B 8
Beyond these benefits (and as you mentioned), there is just not enough information on whether Atkinson Hyperlegible definitely helps or not.
Also, thanks for the link on dyslexia. I suppose that, to an extent, promoting fonts like Open Dyslexia could lead to the unintended consequences described in the article.
I think this actually has a negative effect for me. It’s like every character is now screaming for my attention, and my brain can’t read whole words and phrases. I have to process the letters first. Though it’s possible this could be more to do with the website’s rendering on mobile and default font size.
It doesn’t work for me either. Just reading the text on the page linked here was uncomfortable. It’s not like you describe though - for me it’s like there’s too much white space and there’s this mass of words almost floating around the page and it’s hard to keep track of where I’m up to. I am a bad/slow reader and all reading is like that for me - that font just seems to make it worse.
That’s interesting. I’d love to know if you have the same experience on a desktop and with different font sizes.
It’s fine for me on mobile, and I’m glad that the “I” has horizontal lines. So many scammers adopt fake usernames by using an “I” (capital “i”) instead of an “l” (lowercase “L”) and vice versa.
Do you struggle with monospace fonts too?
Not at all.
can’t wait for this to be in distros by default.
Can I change fonts on my iphone, can I change it to this? I have a disability that impacts my vision and currently I’ve been relying on making text massive but this could be a better solution it sounds like.
No. Very irritatingly, iOS won’t let you install fonts normally.
In order for you to install a font, someone else needs to make an app for that font, and once you download and run the app that installs the font, that font becomes available anywhere.
This seems profoundly stupid to me and I do not get it.
There actually is an app for the older font, which you can find if you search for “hyperlegible”, where some guy is charging $2 to package up this free font for you.
Thanks, Apple. As usual you’ve done a great job ensuring that nobody gives away anything for free on iPhones
I don’t think so. At least I couldn’t find anything on my settings app.
I also think it’s a good looking font.
This is probably a stupid question. If it is free for personal and all commercial use… which case isn’t covered by that? Could just say it is free to use.
OP just tries to be as clear and transparent as possible, because there are times when someone says something is “free to use” but then in the “fine print” they hide limitations.
It’s actually on their page, so I didn’t try to call out OP on that (and not saying you implied that, just to be sure) but am actually curious if that means something specific.
I just added this to my eReader. I’ve been reading g a lot lately and while I haven’t had any difficulty, I’m eager to see if it enhances comprehension.
Good post OP.
I’m glad you found it useful.
If you’re experimenting with fonts to see how they change comprehension, you could try Open Dyslexic too! It looks quite ugly, but it makes reading easier to me and another commenter on this thread. I suppose it’s a matter of testing what works best for you.
Thank you for that suggest. I had taken a peek at it a while ago and it’s too “wobbly” for me.
If you havent tried it yet I really enjoy vollkorn.
That’s quite a nice typeface. I find myself torn between serif vs sans; when reading a book it’s so ingrained to expect serif (I switched from Bookerly) that my eyes stuttered a bit when I started Atkinson’s.
As long as I can get the OTF or TTF files, I’ll try em all. You have any more?
I really like the Roboto Mono Nerd Font
Would I be able to add this to my Kobo e-reader?
I wear glasses - but read in bed without them. I have a larger font size set - but thus looks like a clearer font too
So, legacy one (without next) is already available on a lot of kobo e-reader. But you should be able to install any TTF font on kobo: https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/articles/13009477876631-Load-fonts-onto-your-Kobo-eReader
Awesome - thank you
