Did you know that approximately 15-20% of the world's population has some form of dyslexia, a learning disorder that affects a person's ability to read and write?

The modern world relies on text-written communication. Given that dyslexia is so common, it's up to you to ensure that your documents have dyslexia-friendly fonts.

A woman scratches her head in wonder. The text reads,

Those with dyslexia find some fonts easier to read than others, so when creating documents, you'll want to consider the following:

  1. Characteristics of dyslexia-friendly fonts

  2. Which fonts are most dyslexia-friendly?

  3. Other considerations for a dyslexia-friendly document

Characteristics of Dyslexia-Friendly Fonts

Flaticon Icon Use

  • Black font

  • Sans serif font

  • Monospace

Flaticon Icon Avoid

  • Italics

  • Obliques

A man looks through documents and smiles when he sees something he likes.

How do these characteristics make for dyslexia-friendly fonts in documents?

  • Black font on a light-colored background helps create a contrast that isn't overwhelming. Avoid a bright white background.

  • The sans serif fontis without fancy tips, making the letters easier to identify.

  • Monospace font uses the same width space for each letter in a word, allowing for a uniform appearance and better readability.

  • Avoid using italic and oblique fonts that slant because they may make the text appear to blend together.

Roboto is an example of sans serif font.

Consolas is a monospaced font.

Do not use fancy tipped letters. Use sans serif letters instead. They are much easier to read!

Traditional Roboto is a straight up and down font. Italic Roboto is a slanted font.

Quiz

You've learned that your new hire, Andrew, is dyslexic and often finds it tough to read documents. What can you do with company documents to improve readability for Andrew and others? Choose all that apply:

Which Are the Most Dyslexia-Friendly Fonts?

Dyslexic readers typically find documents using the following fonts the easiest to read:

  • Arial

  • Courier

  • Helvetica

  • Tahoma

  • Verdana

  • Roboto

A man in front of computer smiles and spins in his chair.

These fonts improve the readability of documents because they offer one or more dyslexia-friendly font characteristics.

Other Considerations for a Dyslexia-Friendly Document

There are more ways to make a dyslexia-friendly document that doesn't require much from the author.

Flaticon Icon

  • Adjust font size to 12 - 14 points

  • Use 1.5 line spacing

  • Bold text to highlight important words

  • Use a light-colored background, such as a cream shade

Flaticon Icon

  • Avoid all caps

  • Avoid underlining

  • Avoid bright white backgrounds

Examples

Does it really make a difference? You be the judge.

A Judge asking,

A bad example of a professional document:

A block of text that doesn't contain dyslexia-friendly fonts and other characteristics (audio description below).

A good example from a document with a dyslexia-friendly font and other characteristics:

A block of text that does contain dyslexia-friendly fonts and other characteristics (audio description below).

To hear an audio description of the text in the images above, click the play button on the audio player below:

Test Yourself

A woman driving a car. She says,

You are about to send the following document to your coworkers and must consider accessibility. What changes should you make to create a dyslexia-friendly document?

An example of a document without poor line spacing, underlining, all caps, and a small, non-dyslexia-friendly font.

Quiz

Choose all changes that should be made to the document:

Take Action

License:

Your feedback matters to us.

This Byte helped me better understand the topic.

Get support to take action on this Byte

Join on Discord

#digital-literacies

#information-and-media-literacies

#creating-and-sharing-online

#applying-concept

#participating-in-digital-society