Re: accessible font research

On their website (http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/extra352.html#presentation 
) the British Dyslexia Association recommend "sans-serif fonts, at  
least 12 point. e.g. Arial, Verdana and Comic Sans."

They also include the confident assertion that:
"People remember:
     * 10% of what they read.
     * 20% of what they hear.
     * 30% of what they see.
     * 50% of what they hear and see.
     * 70% of what they say and write.
     * 90% of what they say as they do something."

I once wrote to them to ask for the evidence for this, and they made a  
valiant attempt to find the research reference... I wasn't entirely  
surprised they couldn't find it. In case anyone's interested, I listed  
various debunkings of this in a blog post a while back (http://www.robwaller.org/blog/robsblog.html#8411344567043385107 
).

Most government departments in the UK now produce all their  
publications in 12pt sans serif. This is quite broadly interpreted - I  
have seen Syntax and Univers Light Condensed used, as well as the more  
usual suspects such as Arial or Frutiger.

__________________________________

Rob Waller

Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
University of Reading
T +44 (0) 118 378 6411
M +44 (0) 7850 665933



On 27 May 2009, at 15:53, [email protected] wrote:

> Hi Katie,
>
> Not a system font, unless you happen to have Adobe apps on your  
> system, but I believe both the RNIB and the Dyslexia society have  
> recently adopted Myriad Pro as their typeface of choice, because of  
> its legibility.
>
> Having looked at this recently, in bulk you can probably equip every  
> body suitably for about £20-25 per head, which isn't a great deal in  
> the larger scheme of things, especially if it enhances customer/ 
> audience perceptions of the council.
>
> Regards,
> Ant
>
> Hi
>
> I am working on a small project with a local council with regard to  
> the
> accessibility and readability of their corporate font. They  
> currently use
> Trebuchet but have been criticised by a local disability  
> organisation for
> doing this. They say it is not accessible. As a result they have  
> engaged
> my services to explore and gain opinions from others about the general
> accessibility of Trebuchet in comparison to other (mainly) system  
> fonts.
> They are willing to consider moving to a new font but would prefer  
> this to
> be a system font so that everyone in the organisation can access it. I
> have conducted some primary consultations via telephone and email
> opinion-based research. Before I send out mockups of fonts chosen to  
> trial
> with selected user groups - these have been selected to cover a  
> range of
> impairment, age and other audiences - I would like to ask the  
> following:
>
> i) what people think about Trebuchet with regard to accessibility
> ii) current preferred fonts re: accessibility. NB They are also  
> looking
> for a font which has a good range of weights and a good xy height
> difference so please take this into consideration
> iii) ideas on user testing to gain feedback - we are planning to  
> send each
> user group a selection of fonts using the same text to ask them  
> which they
> prefer and why. Has anyone carried out anything similar and if so do  
> you
> have any advice on how to structure/phrase the questions?
>
> All comments/feedback gratefully received.
>
> With thanks
>
> Katie Grant
> Raincharm Communications
> www.raincharm.co.uk
> 07971 909007
>
>
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