A graphic designer from the Netherlands, Christian Boer, has developed a new font to aid his dyslexia, and he released an English version of the font (also available in Dutch) for Anglophones to purchase online.
The font, called Dyslexie, isn't the first of its kind, but according to an article published last week in Scientific American, "it has received much fanfare from sufferers."
Boer first began designing his font in 2008 while studying at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and in 2010 a fellow student conducted an independent study on the font as part of a master's thesis project.
Participants in the study said the font improved their reading accuracy and allowed them to read for longer periods of time before tiring.
According to Scientific American, the font tweaks letters of the alphabet that are commonly misread, such as "d" and "m," to make them easier to recognize. Letters are also made to look heavier at the bottom by virtue of thicker lines, for instance, and the differences among letters — such as their openings and slant — are also exaggerated to make distinguishing them easier. Capital letters and punctuation are also rendered in boldface.
Some other fonts designed to aid dyslexic readers are Read Regular, Lexia Readable, Tiresias, and Sassoon.
Dyslexia is the most common cause of reading, writing, and spelling problems, according to the website learning-inside-out.com. Of those people with poor reading skills, 70 percent to 80 percent likely have dyslexia.
Copyright AFP/Relaxnews
