[Athen] Text readability: can you tell the difference between "rn" and "m"?

[E.A. Draffan]

A paper called ' Good Fonts for Dyslexia' mentions monospaced fonts as
helping those with dyslexia.
http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/sites/default/files/good_fonts_for_dyslexia_st
udy.pdf

(October 2013

DOI10.1145/2513383.2513447

Conference: Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference
on Computers and Accessibility

Luz RelloLuz RelloRicardo Baeza-YatesRicardo Baeza-Yates)

 

AFB says 

"Tracking (Space Between Letters)

Text with letters very close together makes reading difficult for many
people who are visually impaired, particularly for those who have central
visual field defects, such as older persons with macular degeneration.
Spacing between letters should be wide-for example, a mono-spaced font such
as Courier, which allocates an equal amount of space for each letter, is
very readable."

 

Here is another page suggesting fixed width helps those with visual acuity
difficulties  <http://sightlosssolutions.org/FontsReport1.html>
http://sightlosssolutions.org/FontsReport1.html 

 

Sample of fonts that may help those with reading difficulties
<https://www.dyslexic.com/fonts/> https://www.dyslexic.com/fonts/ 

Best wishes

E.A. 

 

Mrs E.A. Draffan

WAIS, ECS , University of Southampton

Mobile +44 (0)7976 289103

 
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http://www.aaate.net/

 

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On
Behalf Of Christine Robinson
Sent: 24 January 2018 18:31
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Athen] Text readability: can you tell the difference between "rn"
and "m"?

 

Hi all -

 

I've been thinking a lot about readability of text, and I'd like to invite
you to brainstorm with me. This is a long detailed posting, and it won't
hurt my feelings if you delete it here. *smiles* But if you're a curious
person like me.

We're likely all familiar with the general guidelines for readable digital
text: use a sans serif font like Verdana, use good color contrast and font
size, etc.

Lately I've been puzzling over the space between letters, and how typeface
choice affects that:

rn m     Il1        Arial

rn m      Il1           Myriad Pro

rn m     Il1        Times New Roman

rn m   Il1      Verdana

(Hopefully this doesn't come across to you converted into plain text; if you
don't see the above as different fonts, you may want to play around with it
yourself.)

My vision is 20/20, but I find that in most cases, the two lowercase letters
RN, next to each other, are difficult to distinguish from the single
lowercase letter M. Depending on the typeface, it at times it's also
difficult to tell the difference between uppercase I, lowercase L, and/or
the numeral 1. Usually I can tell the difference from context, but if it's
an unfamiliar word, someone's name, or a password, it may take me a few
moments to make sure I'm reading it correctly. Same goes for the common
abbreviation for accessibility: a11y.

Fiddling around for better readability, I've tried playing with kerning,
increasing the space between letters. Again, if you get this converted to
plain text, you won't see that in the text below, I've increased the space
between letters by 1 pt:

rn m   Il1      Arial

rn m    Il1       Myriad Pro

rn m   Il1      Times New Roman

rn m Il1    Verdana

It doesn't help with the "uppercase-I, lowercase-L, or numeral 1?" question.
It usually helps with the "rn or m?" question, but as a trainer, I can just
imagine myself trying to tell people to increase their kerning in order to
improve readability. Besides, I don't recall seeing that recommended
anywhere as a best practice for digital accessibility.

So I got to thinking, what about monospaced (fixed width) typefaces? The
characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space, unlike the other
typefaces above with are variable width.

rn m  Il1   Consolas (monospaced)

rn m   Il1      DejaVu Sans (monospaced)

rn m Il1  Letter Gothic (monospaced)

rn m Il1  Lucida Console (monospaced)

To my eyes, it's usually easier to distinguish between the characters, and
I'm tempted to start recommending that people use a typeface like Consolas
or Lucida Console. However, again, I don't recall hearing any accessibility
people recommending monospaced typefaces.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Best,

Chris

 

Christine Robinson | Technical Trainer/Writer | Center for Teaching
Excellence

Georgia Gwinnett College | 1000 University Center Lane, L-2158 |
Lawrenceville, GA 30043

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