The truth about typefaces that help you read better
Almost every year a different researcher, foundry, or group will announce that they have developed a typeface that can help you read better. For example: last year the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia released a font called Sans Forgetica that they claim helps memory retention when reading. The Braille Institute, this year, won the Fast Company Innovation by Design award for commissioning the typeface Atkins Hyperlegible from the agency ± APPLIED. One of the most famous typefaces to help reading is Dyslexie, which claims to help people with Dyslexia read better.
While the idea behind all of these typefaces is great. The scientific evidence backing up these typeface is minimal at best. Legibility studies on typefaces have been conducted for decades, with the aim of increasing readability. The conclusion of most legibility studies is that while there are little things that can be done to increase legibility, people are able to best read what they see most frequently.
The problem with legibility studies is that legibility is dependent on many factors (letter spacing, line spacing, mixed case, etc.). Overall there is almost no difference in legibility between traditional fonts.
An example of how these results often do not yield definitive results is the legibility tests that were done for the new terminal at London Heathrow airport. They tested the response time of reading signs in 5 different typefaces. While one of the typefaces (Garamond) took significantly longer to read.
One of the issues with the typefaces Sans Forgetica, Atkins Hyperlegible, and Dyslexie, is that there isn’t any published science backing up any of the typefaces. I reached out to the researchers associate with Sans Forgetica and the only information they could refer me to was a website that provides background information but no actual published research.
While many of these typefaces are nothing more than novelty, the Microsoft Advanced Reading Technologies Group has been conducting research on ways to improve legibility for a wide array of people, including those with dyslexia. Academic researchers along with Microsoft have come to the conclusion that there is no one size fits all solution for helping people with dyslexia. The Advanced Reading Technologies Group has found that there are simple ways to help people with dyslexia read better which aren’t designing typefaces. Instead the best ways to help people who struggle to read is to increase the tracking and leading of a typeface. If you want to learn more about this I highly recommend this ATypI video from Kevin Larson who works for the Microsoft Advanced Reading Technologies Group.
The typeface designed for the Braille Institute is a great piece of branding that helps their user base communication. It is not however the silver bullet that is going to solve legibility problems for the visually impaired. A great resource for guidelines on font legibility for people with disabilities is the American Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA lays out that fonts need to be above a certain point size (typically 16pt) and have enough contrast from the background. These factors are going to have a greater impact on legibility than a specially designed typeface will.
The problem with Sans Forgetica is that there isn’t any published scientific data proving the theory behind the typeface. While the initial idea behind the typeface seems plausible over the long term the typeface has the potential to lose its efficacy. People are able to read best what they are used to reading. So the more someone uses Sans Forgetica the more familiar it will become making it less effective over time.
Legibility in typography is an important and difficult topic to tackle because there are so many variables to consider when evaluating legibility, and most often results are inconclusive. If liability is something that interests you, I recommend the book Reading Letters by Sofie Beier, as well as her AtypI talk. Beier researchers liability and typography and I highly recommend reading her book or watching her AtypI talk.
