
OpenDyslexic: A Typeface for Dyslexia - surround
https://opendyslexic.org/
======
CodeAndCuffs
I was told I have dyslexia at a really young age. If so, it's really minor.
I'll occasionally have to pause to remember which way a b goes versus a d.
Sometimes I'll mix up in reading something like a license plate number.

This is all super anecdotal, but I've lost countless hours debugging stuff,
only to find that ive called fidnAllDocs instead of findAllDocs. Even when
looking for a typo in that specific variable, I'll miss it multiple times.

A while back I switched to open dyslexic in my terminal and editor. This issue
has gone from every couple weeks to practically never.

Some people hate it, but it's definitely worth a shot

~~~
rgoulter
You don't mind that it's not a fixed width font?

~~~
skyfaller
On the Github it lists a mono font among the styles: "OpenDyslexic, in
Regular, Bold, Italic, and BoldItalic. Also, _OpenDyslexic Mono_ , and
OpenDyslexic Rounded: intentionally lower contrast."
[https://github.com/antijingoist/opendyslexic#styles](https://github.com/antijingoist/opendyslexic#styles)

I do in fact see an OpenDyslexicMono font after downloading it. I can't vouch
for how good the font is though, since I'm not dyslexic.

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bartligthart
I'm dyslexic and on my kindle I use the OpenDyslexic font. Which works really
well for me!

The bottom half of the letters are a bit fatter which makes it easier in my
head to read. I have no idea what's the science behind this. It's makes it
easier for me to read a bit longer without getting sick of reading.

Not sure if it's faster than other fonts but it reads more relaxed.

However on this www page you don't see the font go to:
[https://opendyslexic.org/](https://opendyslexic.org/)

~~~
__s
[https://www.opendyslexic.org/about](https://www.opendyslexic.org/about) goes
into how weighted bottoms help prevent rotational mixups

------
larrymcp
I tried this in a few different browsers but the pages weren't rendered in
that font as the site indicates. Instead it seems to be rendered in Comic
Sans.

Wonder if there's something I'm doing wrong.

~~~
louisroy
There's a cross-origin issue with the webfonts.

[https://opendyslexic.org/](https://opendyslexic.org/) without the "www" works
better.

~~~
denysvitali
Oh wow, this looks way different. I honestly liked the previous version more
to be honest: I guess it was Verdana or similar on my mobile phone.

Granted that I'm not dyslexic: this version seems way more difficult to read,
other than looking bad :(

~~~
dathinab
The thing is it kinda forces me to read the text word by word and makes it
much easier to correctly read the words.

I'm very minimal reading dyslexic (it's a bit complex).

Anyway while it doesn't fell like it would allow me to read faster, I believe
it does help me to read more correct. Through I have to test it out more. I
thing I will try it the next time I write a paper or similar. Also it's very
different to many other font's so maybe it's just about getting used to it?

~~~
cpuguy83
One thing I noticed quickly is it allows me to see the words as words instead
of a string of text. Without the font i have to focus on each word.

I'll have to try this out.

------
hrafn
These kinds of fonts do not help dyslexics at all. Children in fact show a
preference for reading in Arial and Times New Roman. Some research has shown
that increased letter spacing results in fewer errors, but studies are not
unanimous about this.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934461](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5934461)

~~~
skrebbel
I really don't get this vibe. It's not like this is some potentially-harmful
fake medicine, or an expensive scam.

From the very top of the page:

> _If you like the way you are able to read this page, and others, then this
> typeface is for you!_

Even if that's a "yes" for only 2% of dyslexics, then isn't that good enough?
Why can't a reader decide for themselves whether they find that page easier to
read than most?

~~~
powersnail
> Even if that's a "yes" for only 2% of dyslexics, then isn't that good
> enough? Why can't a reader decide for themselves whether they find that page
> easier to read than most?

If a drug cures 2% cases of cancer patients, with absolutely no downside, it
wouldn't be a cure for cancer. It would be incredible, but still it cannot be
claimed to be a cure for cancer.

The name and branding all suggest the font to counter dyslexia generally. That
would be ridiculously misguiding if it only helps tiny fraction of dyslexia.
Is it a helpful invention? But it's far from what the branding promises.

Of course readers can decide for themselves whether it works for them or not;
but a misleading branding is still misleading.

~~~
prox
I don’t see this website claiming anything bold or misleading, the intro
paragraph is very modest, and there is a HN commenter who already feels its
helpful. And you don’t go around naming your domain
opendyslexiafontbutforonlysomedyslexics.org

I don’t see the misleading part tbh.

------
tobeagram
OpenDyslexic has been around since 2011. Often the best font for dyslexics is
one that they are used to reading – switching the fonts is one of the main
problems.

Apps should generally have the ability to allow for custom fonts so dyslexic
users can customise them and use their favourite font.

On the topic of fonts, my favourite new learning 'enhancing' font is Sans
Forgetica [1] – it's been proven to help you retain and memorise text. Pretty
cool.

[1]: [https://sansforgetica.rmit/](https://sansforgetica.rmit/)

------
dang
If curious see also

2012
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544997](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544997)

2016
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11804492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11804492)

~~~
surround
And a similar, proprietary font
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2754256](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2754256)

------
danfritz
It's one of the reasons I bought a Kobo e-reader is because they had support
for a Dyslexia font (not sure which one it is but looks similar). For me that
font helped me in both reading speed and correctness.

I can now enjoy any book while before I would sometimes buy a book but never
manage to read it correctly since the font would throw me off.

I can only applaud the initiative but I can get that its not for every person
with dyslexia.

~~~
theodorton
Kindle has support for this as well!

------
kndjckt
This font is amazing. It’s like the letters and words finally jump out rather
than then blend into a mush. Having this on Kindle is a game changer. I’m
still upset Pocket got rid of the font though. That was one of the main
reasons I started using Pocket.

------
jbob2000
Did anyone else think that was _brutal_ to read through. I had to vocalise
each word in my head to read the about page, I couldn't skim it at all.

~~~
gwern
I don't think their website even uses their own font. It looks like Comic Sans
or something, not like the example on
[https://www.opendyslexic.org/about](https://www.opendyslexic.org/about)

~~~
jbob2000
You're right! Here's the actual page the uses the font:
[http://antijingoist.github.io/web-
accessibility/](http://antijingoist.github.io/web-accessibility/)

Much easier to read than Comic Sans.

~~~
watertom
I'm not dyslexic.

That page was incredible difficult for me to read.

I actually started and stopped about 10 times because it was so.....
disorienting, it almost had me dizzy, and it caused me to jump around on the
page.

~~~
wy35
I get that the change in stroke width is supposed to create "weight", but it
honestly looks too half-thin and half-bold, or like the text was written in
wet paint and the paint is dripping down. Pretty confusing to read with.

------
01acheru
I had to change my mother tongue from Italian to Portuguese when I was 6 and
it was kind of strange, but after a while it simply felt normal except for a
couple of things.

I'm not dyslexic but sometimes it is hard for me to focus on long texts, I
keep skipping words and going back and forth... although I can read quite fast
sometimes I read a word for another, when I was a kid it took me quite some
time to correctly visualize that "already" is written like that and not
"aldeary" and the same thing for a small number of other words. (thanks
Baldur's Gate, thanks Ocarina of Time)

When I first opened the site with www it simply felt like a normal sans-serif
font (as it was), after reading luisroy comment I changed to the site without
www and I must say that it is way easier to read... don't know if it's the
spacing or something else, or maybe I'm dyslexic, who knows...

Interesting though :)

~~~
tarkin2
> I keep skipping words and going back and forth...

Sounds like mild dyslexic symptoms. Have you tried reading with one eye
closed? It could be mild convergence issues.

~~~
01acheru
I just tried, I read waaay slower with one eye closed so yeah I read the lines
sequentially but it's kind of unpractical.

Anyway I have that "eye skipping" thing not just during reading but also in
average life situations, when talking to someone I keep changing focus: eyes,
mouth, nose, hands, cheeks, right eye, left hand, dog on the background, etc.

If I stare at something trying to keep the focus one of two things happen:

\- I loose myself in thoughts

\- My eyes get tired and I must stop staring

~~~
tarkin2
I imagine it’s slower but is it more accurate? I tend to think one of symptoms
of dyslexia is poor eye convergence. I’d love to try it on people who find it
incredible difficult to read; if you’re starting from the point of an near
inability to see words without them (or your eye) jumping then it may be
helpful.

------
fallingfrog
I used to have an artificial intelligence project that I worked on, (which I
never completed), and one insight that I had was that there are certain things
that a neural net can learn, but there are certain things it can’t. You have
to program in time invariance as an assumption, that the same object can have
the same meaning when you see it a second time. And, you have to make position
invariance and rotation invariance as an explicit assumption too in your image
recognition model. My guess is that the human brain has some dedicated
hardware somewhere that rotates every object it sees and matches it in
different ways, and my guess is that in dyslexic people that hardware is a bit
different. I hesitate to say wrong, because that’s a value judgement, but
different.

------
t0astbread
This looks like something that should be up to the user's browser rather than
the website. If you built this into your website you'd probably need a setting
to turn it on or off (because the font is kinda hard to read for non-dyslexic
people) which would always degrade the experience for one group (based on the
default setting) or even make them more identifiable (if stored in persistent
storage).

------
dumbfounder
I couldn't find reference to a Chrome extension that overrides fonts on other
websites on their site, but I found one with a quick Google:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/opendyslexic-
font-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/opendyslexic-font-for-
chr/cdnapgfjopgaggbmfgbiinmmbdcglnam?hl=en)

------
velox_io
That font is hideous! It only extenuates the bottom of the text, especially on
capitals which don't need enhancing because they're already in CAPS.
Paragraphs of text in caps just become noise, blocks of letters rather than
words.

That font also looks like the top of the line has been rubbed off, making
things far worse as the top of the text has cues to recognise words. I believe
that's my issue with caps as it makes words hard to read as I see blocks of
letters, not words.

The biggest change I make the text easier to read is to increase the font size
a couple of points or zoom in a little (ctrl + mouse wheel/ +-). Right now
hacker news is at 150% zoom (snapped to the left side of a 43" 4K monitor).

Also, I prefer not use windows scaling as it wastes a lot of pixels with
bigger menu bars (my eyesight is fine). One more thing... I'm very particular
about the screen brightness (there's an app called clickMonitorDDC that let's
you change screen brightness from mouse wheel or keyboard (crtl+shift+ up/
down)), and blue light filter at night. I find I can focus better in the
evening/ night but I believe that's more of an ADHD thing.

~~~
KaiserPro
You have to remember that this isn't aimed at a typographer, its aimed at
people who perceive text differently. size isn't always the answer.

Obviously its not going to be the next zilvertype. That to one side, I am
curious to hear from people to see if it helps.

~~~
velox_io
I get the intention, and if it wasn't obvious in my previous post; I have
dyslexia. Font sizing on computer screens is complex, fonts don't scale
perfectly, they have sweet spots where line thickness spills over. When you
configure ClearType on Windows it's quite evident where curtain parts of
curtain words spill over (a similar fashion to Open Dyslexic actually).
Looking at different sized text, it's the line thickness that aids readability
rather than the size of the font.

I pretty sure this is the basis of why serif fonts aren't as readable on
computer displays, the serifs add more noise rather than help.

------
no-dr-onboard
Not to diminish the excellent work that the font community has done in
creating this, but part of me wonders if this is the same font that the
Petscop creator used.

------
drno123
How does this typeface compare to Omotype:
[https://omotype.com/](https://omotype.com/) ?

~~~
njavanjava
Here you can find comparison of Omotype and Open
Dyslexic:[https://www.omoguru.com/dyslexia-
lab/](https://www.omoguru.com/dyslexia-lab/)

There is a whitepaper about two research for ones who want to go deeper.

I've talked to many dyslexics who use it and they say it works really well for
them, much better than anything they could find.

[disclaimer] I work with the team behind both the Omotype and Omoguru. Would
be happy to provide any further info on both.

~~~
surround
That page compares Omotype with the Dislexie font, not OpenDyslexic.

I think it’s also important to note that, unlike OpenDyslexic, Dislexie and
Omotype are not freely licensed.

~~~
njavanjava
One research was comparing Omotype with Dyslexie, the other with Open
Dyslexic. Dyslexie and Open Dyslexic are basically the same.

OmoType is free for personal use.

~~~
surround
> One research was comparing Omotype with Dyslexie, the other with Open
> Dyslexic.

I see. I missed that.

> OmoType is free for personal use.

By “freely licensed” I was referring to free as in freedom.

On that note, where can I download OmoType? I see I can download software that
_uses_ OmoType, but I can’t seem to find where to download the font itself.

~~~
njavanjava
It is available on [https://omotype.com](https://omotype.com)

------
eganist
dang, can we change the url to just opendyslexic.org? www is breaking the font
due to same origin policy.

~~~
surround
Looks like it’s been fixed

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24049630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24049630)

------
martini333
www. shows me Comic Sans

