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Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

brailleinstitute.org

31–40 of 239 posts

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#31
post #29

I'm uncomfortable with people publishing work like this without studies to back up whether they work for their intended audience. I'm sure the Braille Institute is expert in needs of low vision readers. And the design certainly looks promising. But AFAICT no one has studied whether this font is actually more readable. https://www.maxkohler.com/notes/2021-02-16-atkinson-hyperrea... The mess with the popular-but-not-ef…

This implies there is a study showing the open dyslexic font is actually not good? I can't say that would shock me, but it is surprising that they wouldn't have done some studies to justify the claims. Edit: the second link wasn't loading for me, so now I see the study. Bad phone internet... :( Again, still surprised they didn't have the counter study.

That's the NIH study that was linked.

> Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole.

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#32
Do they have data backing up their claims? Also, how does it compare to other high legibility fonts such as Highway Gothic?

It seems like a promising font, but it needs testing.

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#33
post #29

I'm uncomfortable with people publishing work like this without studies to back up whether they work for their intended audience. I'm sure the Braille Institute is expert in needs of low vision readers. And the design certainly looks promising. But AFAICT no one has studied whether this font is actually more readable. https://www.maxkohler.com/notes/2021-02-16-atkinson-hyperrea... The mess with the popular-but-not-ef…

This implies there is a study showing the open dyslexic font is actually not good? I can't say that would shock me, but it is surprising that they wouldn't have done some studies to justify the claims. Edit: the second link wasn't loading for me, so now I see the study. Bad phone internet... :( Again, still surprised they didn't have the counter study.

[deleted]

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies there is a study showing the open dyslexic font is actually not good? I can't say that would shock me, but it is surprising that they wouldn't have done some studies to justify the claims. Edit: the second link wasn't loading for me, so now I see the study. Bad phone internet... :( Again, still surprised they didn't have the counter study.

That's the NIH study that was linked. > Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole.

That's the key finding. And while "no effect" may sound harmless the Discussion section of the paper highlights all the ways having a popular ineffective solution is actively harmful to people with dyslexia.

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#35

I like this idea, but when I go to the web page... > Download the Font… and change the world! By downloading, installing and/or using the font software, you confirm that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of this End-User License Agreement... Sigh. I guess I need to read that EULA. Anyway, clicking on that then downloads a pdf rather than a nice link to some web page text. Sigh. So then anyway, trying t…

It downloads rather than opening in your browser because that’s how you’ve configured your browser. For me it opens in the browser (albeit in a new tab). There’s nothing wrong with the PDF, I can open it with all the PDF readers on my machine; it’s a basic v.1.6 PDF file. This is, in fact a “nice link to some web page text”: a page of text served over the web.

I think linking a PDF is less friendly to users who need Text-to-Speech technology, something the Braille Institute should be sensitive to...

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#36

Although the font did really try to nail its goal, I think Iosevka really nailed it. On top of that, somebody took some of what Atkinson did with their font, and applied it to Iosevka, using its insanely powerful ability to be customized wildly, to produce http://thedarnedestthing.com/iosevka%20hyperlegible

Off-topic, but I think this might be the first time I've loaded a url including `%20` and had it actually render in my address bar as a space, rather than the percent-code. Is this something new in Firefox?

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the NIH study that was linked. > Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole.

That's the key finding. And while "no effect" may sound harmless the Discussion section of the paper highlights all the ways having a popular ineffective solution is actively harmful to people with dyslexia.

Yeah, apologies for my post before the extra links loaded for me. Definitely should have either worded it with the expectation that the link was that study, or waited.

My intent was to express that surprise that they didn't have studies showing benefit. That is, the implication that really surprised me was the reverse, that there are not studies showing it works.

Re: Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

#39

I like this idea, but when I go to the web page... > Download the Font… and change the world! By downloading, installing and/or using the font software, you confirm that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of this End-User License Agreement... Sigh. I guess I need to read that EULA. Anyway, clicking on that then downloads a pdf rather than a nice link to some web page text. Sigh. So then anyway, trying t…

> By downloading, installing and/or using the font software, you confirm that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of this End-User License Agreement

... says them. I don't agree and I don't confirm. I can download the font without accepting/consenting to whatever text they put on the web page. And if they're not ok with that - they can limit the availability of the download to only those who accept whatever weird terms they put in that PDF you mentioned. Except they won't do that, since that would harm adoption of their font.

More about this kind of "licenses":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrink_wrap_contract

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