Note that there still have been no studies on its efficacy. At worst, it is a great font to avoid ambiguity between characters.
This is nowhere near as good as the Open Dyslexic font. It looks weird, and I’m not dyslexic, but damn it makes me able to read so much faster!
I find it ironic that their website has extremely low contrasting colors making it very hard to read.
(Look at the top left for the worst example)
Yeah it’s almost impossible to read
I actually changed my Anki to OpenDyslexic a couple of months ago! I changed it again when Atkinson Hyperlegible Next came out, but I agree that OpenDyslexic makes reading a breeze.
My only grievance with OpenDyslexic is that I don’t think I could send reports with this font without pushback. On the other hand, I have sent multiple reports using Atkinson Hyperlegible and nobody has ever said a thing.
I find this harder to read than almost any other “normal” font. I wonder if I have some other reading impairment I’ve never been aware of - having recently discovered I’m also not neurotypical
As a dyslexic its very hard to read. But dyslexia isn’t one thing. Its a broad catch all category diagnosis. So im sure it does help some. But damn its also ugly…
I wonder how it works. Maybe it has to do with the intentional varying of the sizes of holes in letters, and the lopsided lines so one can’t be confused as another.
While dyslexia is actually a cluster of related issues, a common one seems to be with dimensionality. Basically, the reader’s brain assumes the objects are 3 dimensional. When the eyes make micro adjustments, the letters don’t rotate, since they are 2D. The brain misinterprets this as them rotating, or moving. This is perceived as them flickering or moving, in the corner of your eye.
There are several ways to break this effect. I suspect the shape is intended to mess with and slightly overload the depth sense. Strong colours can also disrupt it. E.g. via a coloured filter or glasses.
Just to note, my knowledge/research on this was 20 years ago, so might be outdated now. The coloured filters (actually tinted reading glasses) did help a relative overcome dyslexia however.
I wish this font worked for me. I think my brain is defective.
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You can also download it at Github without giving up your email address or agreeing to some dumb TOS.
Thanks, it’s a nice font for reading ebooks on my iPhone
Coolness! I like the bionic font, but it’s more “just for me” than anything. This looks like a great default.
I have been using this font as the default font on my personal laptop and I am more than happy with the way it looks and reads.
A couple of years ago I tried using the original Atkinson Hyperlegible (the one published a couple of years ago, before “Next”) on GNOME and my settings didn’t quite work. I had scaling at around 100% and increased the font size a little bit because I was having a hard time reading the font (the irony!). You inspired me to try again, but now with Atkinson Hyperlegible Next!
I see a lot of people discussing this font and mentioning OpenDyslexia.
I couldn’t find research on Atkinson Hyperlegible. It says it was recently this year, I also couldn’t find any research on effectuveness when I looked through the website. If I missed it I aplogize and would love to learn more if someone wants to take the time to link/copy the applicable info. My hope is since it’s a non-profit group focusing on helping those with vision problems it has been well developed tested for effectiveness. Certainly if someone wants to try for themselves please do. Before going all out though say converting large volumes of things or implementing for a classroom I think asking questions would be prudent.
Unfortunately OpenDyslexia does not actually help those with this learn disability! The authors of the below article do a good job of discussing why and the harm misconception/misuse of products like these can create.
Wery JJ, Diliberto JA. The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy. Ann Dyslexia. 2017 Jul;67(2):114-127. doi: 10.1007/s11881-016-0127-1. Epub 2016 Mar 18. PMID: 26993270; PMCID: PMC5629233. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5629233/
Here is some more info and strategies for those instered in regards to dyslexia. https://childmind.org/article/understanding-dyslexia/
Thank you so much for taking the time to research and share you findings.
As to Atkinson Hyperlegible, I suppose its merit could be, at most, making it harder to confuse characters such as B8, O0, or 1Iil.
Beyond these benefits (and as you mentioned), there is just not enough information on whether Atkinson Hyperlegible definitely helps or not.
Also, thanks for the link on dyslexia. I suppose that, to an extent, promoting fonts like Open Dyslexia could lead to the unintended consequences described in the article.
Damn, I was hoping the research would pan out here. I have problems reading longer chunks of text but OpenDyslexia has helped me with that. I read exclusively on my Kobo (which has it included as a font by default) because of it.
It would be great if it did show improvement when evaluated in research. The clinical evidence just isn’t there though.
There is nothing stopping someone from enjoying it out of pure personal preference though.
I think this actually has a negative effect for me. It’s like every character is now screaming for my attention, and my brain can’t read whole words and phrases. I have to process the letters first. Though it’s possible this could be more to do with the website’s rendering on mobile and default font size.
It doesn’t work for me either. Just reading the text on the page linked here was uncomfortable. It’s not like you describe though - for me it’s like there’s too much white space and there’s this mass of words almost floating around the page and it’s hard to keep track of where I’m up to. I am a bad/slow reader and all reading is like that for me - that font just seems to make it worse.
I think this font is meant for people with bad eyesight. The website doesn’t make any claims about trouble reading for other reasons.
I’ve always read very fast with no problems but now I’m old and can’t see small print as easily. This font actually was much more comfortable for me to read without my glasses, which I guess is nice for me but no use at all for you.
How do you feel about comic sans and the open dyslexia font some other comments on this page are talking about with positive and negative comments? Do those make any difference at all to you?
For me comic sands is 100% easy to read. Only has negative connotation from personal experience and the meme of it.
For me it was the default font size. Way to big on that page. Again, not target audience.
That’s interesting. I’d love to know if you have the same experience on a desktop and with different font sizes.
It’s fine for me on mobile, and I’m glad that the “I” has horizontal lines. So many scammers adopt fake usernames by using an “I” (capital “i”) instead of an “l” (lowercase “L”) and vice versa.
It’s just the font size. I have to zoom out to 50% then it’s pretty comfortable. But also I’m not the target audience and if my eyesight goes later on in life I’ll probably benefit. I’m glad sites are considering things like this for accessibility.
Do you struggle with monospace fonts too?
Not at all.
It’s also aesthetically pleasant which is a big plus.
Not for readability it isn’t
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If my goal is maximum readability, making a font less readable for any reason is a mistake
I really like the Roboto Mono Nerd Font
I also think it’s a good looking font.
As someone that has pretty decent vision, I enjoyed reading this font very much. Imma have to download it just because it’s pleasant to read.
The original Atkinson Hyperlegible (without Next) is available by default on some Kobo e-readers. I use it for a few months now and I find that indeed it helps reading at night (or without my glasses because it’s nice to remove them from time to time).
Can I change fonts on my iphone, can I change it to this? I have a disability that impacts my vision and currently I’ve been relying on making text massive but this could be a better solution it sounds like.
No. Very irritatingly, iOS won’t let you install fonts normally.
In order for you to install a font, someone else needs to make an app for that font, and once you download and run the app that installs the font, that font becomes available anywhere.
This seems profoundly stupid to me and I do not get it.
There actually is an app for the older font, which you can find if you search the App Store for “hyperlegible”, where some guy is charging $2 to package up this free font for you.
Thanks, Apple. As usual you’ve done a great job ensuring that nobody gives away anything for free on iPhones
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No, can’t blame the app dev at all but we can blame Apple for making open source and other free software so difficult on their phones
I have good vision but I actually really like this font since i have a smaller phone screen! Anyone know how to install it on an Android phone?
It’s been a long time since I tried, but I tried to install Atkinson Hyperlegible on my android and it wasn’t possible without rooting the phone. Your manufacturer may have a way to add fonts, but for Samsung I was limited to downloading them through their Galaxy store, which had no fonts I wanted
I switched my browser over to it to see how I like it. So far, so good.
There is also font designed for faster reading. https://github.com/Born2Root/Fast-Font
