Why this is helpful
- This style guide provides typography and design guidelines to make it easier for people with dyslexia to read.
- Adopting best practice for dyslexic readers has the advantage of making documents easier on the eye for everyone.
- Includes guidelines for preparing a document for text-reading software
The guidelines include:
- Fonts: A plain, evenly spaced sans-serif font in 12-14 points, with a wide line-spacing
- Contrast: Dark colored text on a light (not white) background
- Text: Avoid underlining, italics and block capital letters
- Justification: Use a left aligned text with ragged right
- Line length: Neither too long nor too narrow, about 60-70 characters.
- Writing style: Short simple sentences
Additional details
Guidelines for preparing a document for text-reading software
- Put full stops after headings to make the voice drop and pause
- Put semi-colons, commas, or full stops after bullet points to make a pause.
- Include as few signs and symbols as are absolutely necessary, as these will be spoken as names (e.g. asterisk)
- Long dashes should be avoided: use colons to make the voice pause.
- Use straight quotation marks. Curly or slanting ones may be read out as ‘back quote’ by some screen readers.
- Avoid Roman Numerals and No. for number
- Repeat text in images in the main text.
Links to this article
British Dyslexia Association (nd) Dyslexia Style Guide