Dyslexie - A new tool for the accessibility toolbox

The other night, during the 2 1/2 hour rain delay at Fenway Park, my niece and I chatted about twitter, blogging and other forms of information transfer. She mentioned that she had heard heard of a "new weighted font" that was developed to help those with dyslexia. Needless to say, I was intrigued with the idea of improving print accessibility for people with print disabilities.   


Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a life long condition that impacts literacy. It often runs in families, and is prevalent in approximately 10-15% of the population. It often goes undiagnosed. People with dyslexia tend to think non-verbally; they think in pictures rather than in words. This tends to be a problem in our text-driven society.

 

Enter Christian Boer and Studiostudio. Boer created Dyslexie not as a cure for dyslexia, but as a tool to help make type more readable. As a dyslectic himself, he reasoned that since dyslectics think visually and respond well to graphics, why not develop a new typeface that was more three dimensional than existing fonts?


Let Gravity Prevail

Boer found that adding "weight" to the bottom of characters anchored them to the baseline, and enabled struggling readers to identify and discriminate between visually similar letters (such as b and d or b and p).  Just like gravity pulls mass toward the center of the earth, the weighted portion of the letter is pulled down to the baseline.  Other typeset modifications include an increase in the ascending or descending lines on some letters, and tipping others from their north pole-south pole alignment. People with print disabilities made fewer word errors and miscues when reading text in Dyslexie typeface.

The Final Word
As of now, Dyslexie is not available as free-ware, and is currently priced at 700 Euros, or approximately $1,000.