Typeface features and legibility research

Luciole, a new font for people with low vision

Low vision affects the ability to read and can be a major barrier to educational success and insertion into the workplace. We designed a new font (Luciole) to improve the readability and comfort for people with low vision. In this study, we analyze the effect of the font type on readability. Luciole was compared to five other fonts (Arial, OpenDyslexic, Verdana, Eido and Frutiger) in 145 French readers (73 with low vision, and 72 normal sighted), aged 6 to 35 years old and divided into four reading expertise groups. Participants completed two tasks, first reading texts on paper and then reading false-words on screen using eye tracking. About half of the participants with low vision had a subjective preference for Luciole when reading on paper and on the screen; lower preference is noted for participants with normal vision. Other readability criteria show a slight advantage of the Luciole font over some fonts (e.g., Eido and OpenDyslexic) in both groups. The results obtained when taking into consideration the level of reading expertise confirm this trend.

Influence of letter shape on readers' emotional experience, reading fluency, and text comprehension and memorisation

Introduction

The amount of educational material delivered to pupils and students through digital screens is increasing. This method of delivering educational materials has become even more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. To be as effective as possible, educational material must be properly designed not only in terms of content, but also in terms of form, e.g., the typeface. The present study investigated the effect of letter shape on readers' feelings of pleasantness during reading, reading fluency, and text comprehension and memorisation.

Methods

To find out whether age influences the effects of typeface shape on reading measures, we divided the participants into a group of less experienced readers (children) and more experienced readers (adults). Both groups read texts in eight different typefaces: four of them were round or in rounded shape, and four were angular or in pointed shape. With an eye-tracker, the reading speed and the number of regressive saccades were recorded as measures of reading fluency and changes in pupil size as an indicator of emotional response. After reading each text, the participants rated the pleasantness of the typeface, and their comprehension and memorisation of texts were checked by asking two questions about the text content.

Results

We found that compared to angular letters or letters in pointed shape, round letters or letters in round shape created more pleasant feelings for readers and lead to a faster reading speed. Children, as expected, read more slowly due to less reading experiences, but, interestingly, had a similar number of regressive saccades and did not comprehend or remember the text worse than university students.

Discussion

We concluded that softer typefaces of rounder shapes should be used in educational materials, as they make the reading process easier and thus support the learning process better for both younger and adult readers. The results of our study also showed that a comparison of findings of different studies may depend on the differences among the used letter shapes.

PseudoSloan: A perimetric-complexity and area-controlled font for vision and reading research

Artificial orthographies have long been used in studies of verbal learning and reading. These orthographies, also known as pseudo or false fonts, are designed to match the letters of an existing alphabet on a range of visual features, isolating effects of orthography from those owing to lexical processing. In a parallel line of research, there has been much interest in the design of optotypes for measuring visual acuity that have good properties in terms of character complexity and graceful degradation under blur. Here we merge these two traditions by designing a fully scalable pseudofont, “PseudoSloan,” that is based on the design rubric of the widely used Sloan optotypes. The font includes 26 Latin letters as well as two sets of letter-like symbols matching the Latin alphabet on a letter-by-letter basis. Quantitative matching of the pairs of Sloan and PseudoSloan glyphs is done on the basis of ink area and perimetric complexity. We provide the installable PseudoSloan font in TrueType and OpenType formats, plus a large number of PseudoSloan glyphs in .svg format that vary over wide ranges in their perimetric complexity and ink area (https://osf.io/qhj2b/).

Challenges in Reading Arabic among Children with Dyslexia

SIGNIFICANCE

There are limited studies assessing reading performance and children's difficulties with dyslexia especially when reading Arabic, a language that has a substantially different script from English and other Latin-based languages.

PURPOSE

This study aimed to (1) measure reading performance in children with dyslexia by acuity level and (2) conduct an indirect comparison between the effects of dyslexia on Arabic versus English readers.

METHODS

Twenty children aged 9 to 12 years with dyslexia and 30 controls aged 9 to 11 years were included in the study. Reading performance was evaluated using maximum reading speed, reading acuity, and critical print size (CPS). Two Arabic charts, the Balsam Alabdulkader-Leat chart and the International Reading Speed Texts chart, were used to evaluate reading performance. The number of errors was calculated and plotted against print size.

RESULTS

ANOVA revealed a significant difference between the two groups in all reading performance measures (P < .05). Reading speed for children with dyslexia was significantly lower than that for the control group (33 vs. 90 standard-length words per minute). Critical print sizes were 0.25 and 0.10 logMAR for children with dyslexia and the control group, respectively. Reading acuity was worse for children with dyslexia in comparison with the control group. Error number above the CPS was significantly higher in children with dyslexia than in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

Reading speed measures were lower for children with dyslexia compared with controls. Children with dyslexia required larger CPS to read at their maximum speed, indicating that larger print sizes may improve reading with greater speed. The difference in reading performance measures between controls and children with dyslexia is higher when reading Arabic than when reading English. This suggests that the intricate Arabic script and crowding may more strongly affect children with dyslexia reading Arabic.

Reading in the presence of macular disease: a mini-review

Purpose

Reading is vital to full participation in modern society. To millions of people suffering from macular disease that results in a central scotoma, reading is difficult and inefficient, rendering reading as the primary goal for most patients seeking low vision rehabilitation. The goals of this review paper are to summarize the dependence of reading speed on several key visual and typographical factors and the current methods or technologies for improving reading performance for people with macular disease.

Important findings

In general, reading speed for people with macular disease depends on print size, text contrast, size of the visual span, temporal processing of letters and oculomotor control. Attempts at improving reading speed by reducing the crowding effect between letters, words or lines; or optimizing properties of typeface such as the presence of serifs or stroke‐width thickness proved to be futile, with any improvement being modest at best. Currently, the most promising method to improve reading speed for people with macular disease is training, including perceptual learning or oculomotor training.

Summary

The limitation on reading speed for people with macular disease is likely to be multi‐factorial. Future studies should try to understand how different factors interact to limit reading speed, and whether different methods could be combined to produce a much greater benefit.