Dutch Studio Designs Typeface Font to Help Dyslexic Readers

Posted 07/06/2011 at 7:30am | by Paul Lilly

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It's easy to be passionate about technology when reading about 100-core processors, supercomputers using thousands of GPUs, jetpacks, flying cars, Wicked lasers, robotic limbs, and the sort. While perhaps not as sexy as all that, go ahead and add to the list of interesting technology a new typeface font designed to make it easier for dyslexic people to read.

Christian Boer of Dutch design group Studio Studio designed the font in 2008 and it was more recently the center of a study at the University of Twente. The font is based on the idea that many of the 26 letters in the standard Latin-based alphabet look similar, making it easy for those who suffer from dyslexia to confuse them. The "Dyslexie' typeface gets around this problem by changing certain parts of letters, like making the underside more bold, or lengthening the ascender or descender so that it's easier to discern the letter 'h' from the letter 'n' (see video below).

The study found that these subtle changes resulted in dyslexic people making fewer errors. There will be more information posted at Studio Studio's website, which is down right now but is expected to be up in English next week, according to TheNextWeb.com.