Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/24/braille-institutes-free-atkinson-hyperlegible-font-helps-low-vision-readers.html
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Nice! And it looks good, too! I know dyslexia typefaces also play an important role but oh boy do they look bad.
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This font also has unambiguous characters, so it is another candidate for fonts that help dyslexics.
Edit: b and p look too similar. Mirroring those letters is one of my blindspots, it is mostly caught by spellchecking but it occasionally slips past.
I might ask if they could change that. I know that dyslexia isn’t the focus here, but I don’t see how it would harm it’s main function as a low vision legible font.
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And it’s got a proper zero!
Speaking as someone who could probably get a job as an understudy for the Myopic Muldoni-Boys from Chicago, why are there so many fonts that lose a lot of legibility as soon as the kerning is just a teensy-weensy bit off?
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Had to look that one up!
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Just a thought -- to help those of us with vision problems, BoingBoing might consider NOT calling fonts by name in its CSS style sheet.
Thanks.
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Does doing that override your ability to use a default font that works better for you?
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Why is that a problem?
Just in case: Have you tried using !important in your use style sheet?
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It’s interesting that a “not important” style should be the root cause of so many problems. 
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I confess that, with 10 years absence from the need to write a CSS file, I’m 'way out of the loop.
Mind you, I’m several hours into research on “How do I change my Windows 10 system font” and “How do I force a specific font to be used in Chrome” and related questions without a definitive and correct answer. Any recommendations gratefully accepted. And yes, I’ve restarted the browser/computer after each change, none of which work universally.
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But that is the point. What designers want in a font is similarity and consistency and that is exactly what makes them difficult to read. For readability you want each letter to be as different and distinctive as possible and that makes the font look random and therefor ugly.
Ever seen one of the cursive handwritings where almost every letter is just another type of loop? Totally unreadable.
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If you can do with uppercase letters only:
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I use this typeface for proofing OCR.
DPCustomMono2
but I think it’s it’s too ugly for general use.
The punctuation marks are really distinctive, as badly done OCR tends to dissolve into odd amalgamations of periods, slashes and commas,. This greatly diminishes the appeal as a general purpose reading font, unless one is Victor Borge,
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“rn” versus “m” is the worst
Are there any examples of “vv” in the real world?
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avvisning comes to mind, Norwegian for rejection.
Can’t think of an English example right now.
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I would look it up but I can’t be bovvered.
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VVV-Venlo?
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4 abbreviatioons in dictionary txt including this one.
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I’m not savvy enough to think of any…
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