Add OpenDyslexic

[jschlackman]

As an IT Director in education I'd love to see OpenDyslexic added to Google Fonts. Many schools, including mine, are using Google Docs with students, and the addition of OpenDyslexic would make it the first font available in Docs specifically designed to support dyslexic readers.

OpenDyslexic is already open sourced on GitHub (https://github.com/antijingoist/open-dyslexic), the creator has stated his support for the addition, and it looks like he tried to make it happen via some process in 2012. What needs to be done to make it a reality?

[davelab6]

In the end, I decided not to onboard this (or any other font made for dyslexics) to Google Fonts, because I kindly believe they are all based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what dyslexia is. I'd love to help dyslexics and kids read better, but I believe fonts can't help them: I think there is no detectable reading performance difference between Arial and Dyslexie for dyslexic readers.

As a citable paper on this, Monotype commissioned a literature review of the dyslexic fonts from Chuck Bigelow and Kris Holmes: http://bigelowandholmes.typepad.com/bigelow-holmes/2014/11/typography-dyslexia.html (B&H are big names in the type industry; Chuck Bigelow worked as a type manager at Adobe when it was a startup in the 80s...)

And there's also a less academic / lighter article in Communication Arts: http://www.commarts.com/columns/should-dyslexics-unite.html

And more recently, in http://typedrawers.com/discussion/1721/dyslexie-font-activism was this quote:

…Using a font with claims to improve reading for individuals with dyslexia without evidence to support this claim could result in further frustrations by teachers, parents, and individuals with dyslexia when no differences is observed after changing fonts used. Teachers and other practitioners need to be able to discriminate between those interventions that have been empirically shown to be effective from those that have not… Inert interventions can in fact cause other forms of harm, in depriving resources (time and financial) away from those interventions that have demonstrated efficacy… Further, the use of unsubstantiated interventions can impact the credibility of the profession and lead to the public losing trust in special educators… Finally, the most harm may come when students who have already experienced significant struggle and academic failures related to learning to read, have yet another experience with failure when they are not able to read significantly better in a font designed to do so. A repeated failure experience can further damage students’ self-efficacy and academic self-esteem.

Wery, Jessica J., and Jennifer A. Diliberto, ‘The Effect of a Specialized Dyslexia Font, OpenDyslexic, on Reading Rate and Accuracy’, Annals of Dyslexia, 2016, 1–14 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11881-016-0127-1;

In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I welcome peer-reviewed scientific research that demonstrates such fonts can really help. Until then... :)

[jschlackman]

That's a fair and good explanation. Thanks for taking the time to let us know the situation.

[davelab6]

There are some anecdotal reports that such fonts help, but I believe it's the placebo effect

[m4rc1e]

@jschlackman Going slightly off track here, but this is rather interesting http://geon.github.io/programming/2016/03/03/dsxyliea

[davelab6]

Nice find Marc. At an ATypI a few years ago, Microsoft demonstrated an effective intervention that uses a phonetic dictionary to add hair space characters to separate out the syllables of words spatially, diminishing the "crowding" that causes that kind of perception.

[davelab6]

This came up again today and I was happy to see https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/dyslexia/is-there-a-certain-font-that-works-best-for-kids-with-dyslexia ranking highly on a simple search :)

[davelab6]

https://psyarxiv.com/akjdr looks very promising

[davelab6]

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-017-0154-6

That article title...

https://www.chialab.it/lang/eng/topics/leggibilita-tipografica-e-dislessia

Thank you @RosaWagner for the links

[mikkorantalainen]

Here's a presentation by a person (Seren Davies) who is diagnosed with dyslexia and it seems to help her. I would guess that persons diagnosed with dyslexia may actually be part of subgroups with different issues.

https://youtu.be/9xXBYcWgCHA

The people served by OpenDyslexic are like Seren and suffer from letters mirroring inplace (that is, different letters do not mix or the whole word is not messed up). As such, use of it could be improvement for those people.

However, seeing how she mixes "clam" with "calm" and "melons" with "lemons" suggests that she also suffers from letters mixing so it would be interesting to see more studies of people suffering from dyslexia.

Regardless of OpenDyslexic being included to Google fonts or not, the use of icon fonts is a bigger issue in general and may cause all kinds of accessibility problems.

[davelab6]

https://twitter.com/GarethFW/status/1540721460020494337

Over 2,000 participants, 250 with strong dyslexic traits, 20 fonts compared and the ‘dyslexic friendly' fonts performed very badly with their intended target audience.

https://youtu.be/h8IOqUl1zII

[mightyiam]

Hey, @davelab6. I just like the font... Does it have to be successful for its intended purpose for it to be considered for addition into Google Fonts, please?

[davelab6]

@mighyjam yes, I believe it harms people by misleading them.

[mightyiam]

Similar to how one would not sell cigarettes?

[davelab6]

Maybe that's would be too strong a metaphor; maybe the marketing of oxycodone painkillers as "non addictive" which eclipsed actually non addictive alternatives would be more apt; whereas Open Dyslexic is not independently verified as a helpful intervention, and other alternatives exist like Lexend that are independently verified, because the font family name includes the word dyslexic, including OD in GF with that name will crowd out better options.

Dyslexia is an umbrella term, and it's possible OD supports better a specific kind of dyslexia; that's my hypothesis based on presentations I've attended by the Dyslexie designer.

If anyone can determine if my hypothesis is valid, I wouldn't be as opposed to adding it with a name specific to that kind of dyslexia, as that would neuter the overly broad marketing (and widespread misunderstanding) of the current name.

Oxycodone also has legitimate uses, in this analogy.

[mightyiam]

So, if one were to fork OpenDyslexic, rename it to something like L33t F0nt and ask that it be added to Google Fonts..?

[davelab6]

@mightyiam hilarious but no.

[mightyiam]

I feel like the kindest thing would be to include whatever fonts people wanna use. Not that it's a perfect comparison, but imagine GitHub gate-keeping which projects are allowed on it, based on whether they believe them to be useful.

I understand that Google Fonts is a result of curation and there should definitely be curation. Without curation, we'd have low quality fonts. But quality would be my only concern. How well the font happens to serve its intended audience... I would not go into that, if I was curating fonts for the masses.

[davelab6]

"Dyslexia fonts may also give students false hope—and result in disappointment, the researchers of the 2017 study warn" – https://www.edutopia.org/article/do-dyslexia-fonts-actually-work/

[YellowOnion]

The original study linked was a sample size of 12 and not longitudinal, and says "Dyslexie" in graphs showing poor peer review standards...Not to mention if it's even used OD, it's v1, not v2.

Lexend is another Dyslexic friendly font, that is not just included on google fonts, but officially supported: https://github.com/googlefonts/lexend, has only one science paper backing it which is published by the author of the font too, so I'm not hugely convinced the science is there either.

So I'm sensing a bit of hypocrisy and a conflict of interest.

I really doubt Open Dyslexic is going to make things objectively worse. Especially since no one is forcing it on users, it should be there as an option. Just put a disclaimer up. The FDA has higher standards for banning food ingredients.

The standard should be provably harmful for exclusion. At the end of the day, It's just a quirky font, with some interesting design decisions, and there are plenty of those on the website.

[davelab6]

Sorry, no.

https://pimpmytype.com/dyslexia-fonts

[FOREVEREALIZE]

Hello, Dyslexic person here.

Whether or not there are papers on it, whether or not research indicates so, whether or not individuals think it looks good or bad, I believe that OpenDyslexic should be added to Google Fonts. I have always had huge difficulties reading text in websites, documents, and otherwise. Once I discovered OpenDyslexic, it honestly changed my life. I use it almost everywhere I can, it really makes reading easier, and it really does it by THAT much.

So, regardless of whether you think the term is misleading, regardless of if there's not any major research on it, I believe having this font on Google Fonts would benefit thousands, if not millions of people.

For example, at work, I was allowed to use OpenDyslexic, as everyone understood it improved readability but, with Google being our main "office software" (Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.) I have found that, in most places, I can't benefit from OpenDyslexic, or its enhanced readability.

Please Google, reconsider.

[FOREVEREALIZE]

Additionally, as the OpenDyslexic website shows, there are lots of research papers that back that OpenDyslexic works: opendyslexic.org/related-research