The following are some simple recommendations to help ensure that your text is dyslexia friendly:
Font Style
Paper
Presentation Style
Writing Style
Posters and Leaflets
Font Style
- Use a san serif font such as Arial, Comic Sans, Verdana or Sassoon.
- Use a minimum of 12pt or 14pt font size.
- Use lower case letters. Avoid unnecessary use of capitals. Using all capital letters can make it harder to read, and it can also appear that you are shouting at the reader.
Paper
- Use a coloured paper, even cream or off white. Some individuals will have specific colour preferences, e.g. yellow or blue.
- Use matt paper to reduce glare.
- Don’t use flimsy paper which may allow text from the other side to show through. Good quality 80 or 90 gsm is effective.
- Avoid light text on a dark background.
Presentation Style
- Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Try to break text into short readable units.
- Use wide margins and headings.
- Use at least 1.5 line spaces between lines of text, if possible.
- Use bold print to highlight. Italics and underline should be avoided as they can blur text.
- Highlight important text in a box or use colour.
- Use bullet points and numbers rather than long passages of prose.
- Keep text left justified with a ragged right edge.
- Don’t use unnecessary hyphenation.
- Don’t use unnecessary hyphenation.
Writing Style
- It is best to keep text as simple and concise as possible, to aid navigation and comprehension.
- Keep sentences short and to the point (15-20 words per sentence).
- It helps to imagine the reader is sitting opposite you and you are talking directly to them.
- Give clear instructions, and avoid lengthy explanations.
- Use short words and terms where possible – avoid unnecessary complex vocabulary.
- Good advice on producing text in ‘Plain English’ can be found online: www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-guides.html.
Posters and Leaflets
- Keep design simple.
- Avoid background graphics which can make text harder to read.
- Keep essential information grouped together, such as the time, date and place of an event.