Hacker News Reader

Comment by beebmam | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely can't stand the default font, and so many people tend to use it. My dyslexia makes it really difficult for me to read it. Please, please, Excalidraw owners if you're reading this: make the default font something that's much more friendly to those with dyslexia.

Defaults matter a lot.

View on HN

To be honest, I don't believe we should adapt defaults to fit a single digit percentage population. I'm not dyslexic and the fonts suggested are horrible to read in my opinion. I'm totally for the option to set different fonts as default so dyslexic users have an easier life, but the global default should not be changed because of this.

There is an important school of design thought that you should design for the people with the biggest handicaps, and by doing that you make it the best for everyone. E.g. If you're making a car, make it easy to get in and out for the elderly and then it'll be joyously easy for everyone else. Another classic example of this is the "Oxo Good Grips" range of kitchen utensils.

You’re applying it over-liberally. That school of thought is to apply accessibility features that maximize accessibility for /everyone/ - eg, automatic door openers.

Features that improve accessibility for a subpopulation while decreasing it for the broader population are /not/ part of that thesis.

The topic of dyslexia friendly fonts falls somewhere in between. Some fonts are considered friendlier than others and are fine for the general population (verdana), others are friendlier to dyslexics but hideous to the general population (open dyslexia). I call it a gray area because they’re ugly, and do not improve readability for the general population, but not overtly inaccessible to the general population.

> I don't believe we should adapt defaults to fit a single digit percentage population. I'm not dyslexic and the fonts suggested are horrible to read in my opinion. I'm totally for the option to set different fonts as default so dyslexic users have an easier life, but the global default should not be changed because of this.

This philosophy is based on the red-hot idea that the protecting the needs of someone in the majority is as important as doing it for the minority.[0] It also sets up the false dichotomy, part of the same rhetoric, that it's one or the other, them or me.

It's not the same at all: The majority doesn't need protection: Almost everything is built for and by the majority; the engineers, executives, funders, and reviewers are generally in the majority; everything they do is from that perspective, automatically. Including people who aren't in the room is a real effort. Also, there's productivity, stress, and basic equality: Almost everything people in the majority encounter is built for them. If you are in the minority, your day is filled with obstacles, problems, and ignorance, which not only slows you down but wears you down; it pushes you to the margins and makes you an outsider.

It's not a zero-sum tradeoff; you can help both groups. And generosity toward those who need it is a virtue; it's about justice and fairness, and their freedom to maneuver in society. I'm not sure what to call generosity toward those who have the power.

[0] Really, rather than majority and minority, we should be saying those with power and those without, but that adds another dimension to the conversation.

Wrong, tools on the web should follow basic web design rules. The font should be replaced. You can not have bad UX because somebody thinks it looks cool.

We’ve open sourced the font and made a lot of small but important changes to it over the past 6 months. If you are willing to help, it would be great if you could open an issue with specific words that are difficult to read with your dyslexia and we can figure out how to tweak the font to remove the ambiguity. Thanks for bringing this up!

https://github.com/excalidraw/virgil

Honest question: what is a good font for dyslexic people?

Another one is OpenDyslexic

https://opendyslexic.org/

Notice how parts of the letters are weighted. That helps with identifying which part of the letter is bottom.

And its monospace equivalent for coding is OpenDyslexicMono

As someone without dyslexia, I find that really difficult to read! I'm all for accessibility, but I personally wouldn't want this to be the default - would be great if users with dyslexia had the option to set it as their default though.

Hm, I do not have dyslexia either and I find it maybe a bit odd at first glance, but not difficult?

Is it maybe just a matter of getting used to it?

Otherwise sure, the bewt option would be probably for people to use their own font and make it easy to do so (@browsers)

Tampermonkey should be able to enforce typefaces across websites: https://www.tampermonkey.net/

Surveys of the dyslexic population suggest that the crowd favorite is Dyslexie. Even a. Lot of dyslexics hate opendyslexic.

Interesting! I haven't heard of something similar before. Does it help you to read?

Oh sorry I wasn't clear, I get these fonts for my coworker(s) who have accessibility issues, so I just listen to what they say. This open one was their current preference.

https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/typeface/

Controversially: Comic Sans. It turns out to be very readable for short bits of text, especially for people with dyslexia.

Not sure it helps, but I submitted https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/issues/4206

Feel free to jump in on it

Reply on news.ycombinator.com