3 ms·
As a dyslexic person, this actually makes things worse. I have a hard time reading caps, I believe it's because the characters have the same vertical positionin
by velox_io 8y ago
As a dyslexic person, this actually makes things worse. I have a hard time reading caps, I believe it's because the characters have the same vertical positioning so there are less visual cues to go on. A similar thing with serif fonts, I understand that the tails are meant to aid readers, but I just find it as additional noise.
Switching that font to lowercase doesn't help much (didn't see the link at the top of the page initially, not until I went back to the page in fact). That font feels like my monitor is badly in need of calibration. I get that they're adding a horizontal rule to aid readers to follow each line, but it just looks weird! Maybe things would be different if I grew up with it. Plus I've put in tonnes of time and effort reading 'normal' fonts.
Pro tips:
-Line spacing greatly helps things (things get cryptic when it's removed).
-Small fonts make things harder to read (right now my browser is at 150%, have a 43" monitor so why not). I generally increase the font 20% (even when I have no eyesight problems).
-Contrast! Bright coloured/ contrasted backgrounds (such as black on red) make make things much harder to reader to read (I left that typo in, brain was still thinking about harder and read (er... did it again here) at the same time)). Feels as though there's too much info coming in simultaneously. Similar with black on white, but not as bad. That could just be an ADD/ ASD thing (there's a surprising amount of crossover) as I literally hate the white from some LED bulbs (10k+) - it's piercing.
-Avoid overly long paragraphs (tend to get a little lost in the wall of text).
Dyslexia is a funny thing, it affects people in different ways to different degrees (a friend of mine is a bank manager, yet he can barely write a text message). It's taken me a while to develop strategies, such as: I read any any [duplicate word] text I write at least three times, yet I still have errors. Often sound words in my head as I write, and some words I constantly get wrong. Such as 'field', have to remember it as 'fI-elD' (hard i at the start) - Kind of ironic as the secondary school I went to had field in its name (luckily it was embossed on my jumper:D) and now I constantly work with databases. At school my literacy was appalling, at college it was embarrassing (with tutor corrections on every line), wasn't on uni/ after that I started to get a handle on things. In my thirties I still feel I'm improving, people often judge intelligence in people's ability to write. I'm sure some of my teachers would bet good money that I'd never be able to touch-type (although I'd be lost without spellcheck).
If anyone knows a text reader that isn't a pain in the a (able to read a paragraph or article, and not follow my cursor as I change applications). I'm all ears! ;)
- gnicholas 8y ago> If anyone knows a text reader that isn't a pain in the a (able to read a paragraph or article, and not follow my cursor as I change applications). I'm all ears! ;) Do you mean a text to speech reader, or a reading tool that helps with dyslexia more generally?
- velox_io 8y agoMainly to read articles/ ebooks (I take more in that way), but also to proofread what I've written as things still slip through spell check. I'm not that bothered about speech to text, as products I've tried in the past often end up more cumbersome than the problem they solve. I might try again as the has been an explosion in machine learning recently, so maybe technology has advanced to be more natural & accurate.
- Endy 8y agoI use Balabolka to read back what I write. With ebooks, I hate to suggest Apple products, but the screen reader on the ipad is great at reading epub files out loud (not so great at PDFs though).
- gnicholas 8y agoFor articles/ebooks, I'd put in a plug for BeeLine Reader [1], which I created originally for use as a speed reading tool but learned is very helpful for many people with dyslexia. We are currently doing a couple studies with accessibility researchers to better understand how it helps and for which specific populations. Any feedback would be appreciated! 1: http://www.beelinereader.com/individual http://www.beelinereader.com/individual You can read Kindle books using our iPad app and browser extensions (via the Kindle Cloud Reader). Both tools also work for news articles or arbitrary websites.