Note that there still have been no studies on its efficacy. At worst, it is a great font to avoid ambiguity between characters.
Coolness! I like the bionic font, but it’s more “just for me” than anything. This looks like a great default.
Well i was just mentioning bionic, but the link goes to the OP’s subject
When I read your comment, the post already had a link. I guess they added after reading your comment.
I dont get how thst don’t works. Surly it can’t know the word in advance and auto bold the first three letters?
I tried to get it working on Kobo and it dosnt seem to. Perhaps it was me though.
The bionic font? Good point, I don’t know how it “knows.”
Could be very advanced use of ligatures
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!
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.
This is probably a stupid question. If it is free for personal and all commercial use… which case isn’t covered by that? Could just say it is free to use.
OP just tries to be as clear and transparent as possible, because there are times when someone says something is “free to use” but then in the “fine print” they hide limitations.
It’s actually on their page, so I didn’t try to call out OP on that (and not saying you implied that, just to be sure) but am actually curious if that means something specific.
IIRC, it uses a free (libre) font license. So you’re free to do pet much anything. Changing the font might have some restrictions.
Yeah, it’s the SIL Open Font License. The text can be found behind their “End-User License Agreement” link.
There is also font designed for faster reading. https://github.com/Born2Root/Fast-Font
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
I also think it’s a good looking font.
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.
Do you struggle with monospace fonts too?
Not at all.
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?
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.
This seems to indicate it’s best for those with ‘low vision’ which almost implies there’s a more ‘hyperlegible’ font that’s better for those with standard/regular vision. Is this the case or should it be argued that this font is most legible for all and thusly also best for those with low vision? Just curious–would like to know what best runner-ups would be suggested too
I’m also curious how they went about creating this font. Any resources on how they go about proving/creating it’s ‘hyperlegibility’?
The website lists some features that enhance legibility. Some are common sense (ex. 1, l and I all look different), some are less obvious:
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Unambiguous Letterforms
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Clear Uprights
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Distinct Pairs
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Open Counters
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Spurs and Tails
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Special Circles (although this one could be just branding)
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This is largely a layperson’s opinion, but I don’t think there would be much of a difference. The thing is that perfect vision rarely happens, not just because of bad eyes, but because sunlight might be hitting your screen or you’re reading at a weird angle or contrast is bad etc…
And even if the pixels were beamed straight to your retina, your brain is still a pattern matching machine. If it’s easier to discern individual letters, it becomes quicker to select each word correctly.Having said that, if there were a font that’s objectively the most readable, we probably wouldn’t have a gazillion different fonts. Some folks here have said that they find this font distracting, for example. So, yeah, you kind of have to decide on your own, what works best for you.
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!
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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 wish this font worked for me. I think my brain is defective.
I wish there was an open font that tries to do the same thing, but with an aesthetic that wasn’t reminiscent of comic sans.
You’re looking at it, the one linked In the op lmao
I like how that font disambiguates glyphs that often get confused, but I found it to be pretty hard to look at, honestly. I think the main issue might be that the line thickness appears to be uniform at all parts in all letters.
See my reply to the other person for a couple of fonts to try :)
The Hyperlegible web site makes no mention of dyslexia, only visual impairment. Those are two totally different issues.
Well yes but beauty standards for typography run counter to accommodating for dyslexia, especially for sans serifs. Similarity in shapes, curves, weights, and stroke width are seen as beautiful, but they’re exactly what must be given up for more accessible typography.
Someone else in the comments here did mention Bionic Reading though, and there’s a free alternative in Fast Font, which has a gradient of weights for each word from black for the first letter to thin for the last one. Might be something to consider
But comic sans is funny
You’re right, I’m going to change all my fonts to comic sans (or whatever open-source variant might exist)…
This looks like the font used on shroom tshirts
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…
To be honest, studies around whether this font is actually easier to read for people with dyslexia haven’t shown that to be the case. At least, that’s what I remember from reading about it in a Dutch skeptic magazine (Skepter) some time ago. So if you have dyslexia and find this font harder to read, that doesn’t have to say anything about you.
EDIT: this seems to be the article I read, though it’s from ten years ago.
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.
can’t wait for this to be in distros by default.
I tried to put this on my Kobo, but it just crashed it every time.
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.
Thanks for sharing!
