Friday, April 13, 2012

Dyslexia - how they see "justified" paragraphs

I've been working on a strategic project (AODA initiative) that will help disabled people work with Canadian websites. Canada has caught up with the rest of the first world and accessibility is a big focus these days - the legislation is aimed at making the world fairer for this very-likely frustrated group. Even as my "normal" vision has taken a slight hit as I get older, some websites are a pain to read.

There are so many issues I didn't see - did you know that dyslexic people have trouble reading "justified" typeset?  (The text lines up with the left and the right margins)

I always preferred this typeset because it looked so "professional".   Well, it turns out it's exclusive too.  So now I'm left-justifying everything.  Seems only fair, after all it's a simple change to make and I can read either way.

There are many types of Dyslexia,  and I'm still learning, but here are a couple examples of "the Rivers Effect" that I took from Google Images.    The audits that will be done on our public-facing internet websites will uncover many of these kinds of issues - and it's not simple.  I'll keep you posted.