Insights from a dyslexia simulation font: Can we simulate reading struggles of individuals with dyslexia [post]

Zoey Stark, Léon Franzen, Aaron Paul Johnson
2020 unpublished
Individuals with dyslexia struggle at explaining what it is like to have dyslexia and how they perceive letters and words differently. This led the designer Daniel Britton to create a font that aims to simulate the perceptual experience of how effortful reading can be for individuals with dyslexia (http://danielbritton.info/dyslexia). This font removes forty percent of each character stroke with the aim of increasing reading effort, and in turn empathy and understanding for individuals with
more » ... exia. However, its efficacy has not yet been empirically tested. In the present study, participants without dyslexia read ten standardized texts from a commercial reading assessment, five texts in Times New Roman and five in the dyslexia simulation font. We compared this group to individuals with dyslexia reading texts from the same reading assessment tool in Times New Roman font. Results show that the simulation font exaggerated the difficulty of reading, surpassing that experienced by adults with dyslexia, as reflected in increased reading time and overall number of eye movements. Reading appeared to be even more laborious for readers reading the simulation font compared to individuals with dyslexia. Future research could compare the performance of the Daniel Britton font against a sample of beginning readers with dyslexia as well as seek to design and empirically test an adapted simulation font with an increased preserved percentage of letter strokes.
doi:10.31234/osf.io/9vquy fatcat:bpv52x4wcjagznhc54nusd2v24