Typography & Readability | Accessibility

The “Why”

Reducing Visual Fatigue: Proper font choice and spacing allow the eye to move smoothly across the page. This is especially important for students with dyslexia or visual tracking issues.
Clarity on Screen: Digital screens have lower resolution than print. Certain fonts “break down” or blur on monitors, making them difficult to read over long periods.
Character Recognition: Clear typography helps distinguish between similar-looking characters (like a lowercase l, an uppercase I, and the number 1), which is critical for technical and scientific content.

Bad (for web): Using highly decorative or “Script” fonts for body text. While beautiful, these are nearly impossible for screen readers to OCR and difficult for anyone to read in a paragraph.
Good: Using a clean Sans-Serif font (like Arial, Calibri, or Verdana) for digital documents.
The Difference: Sans-serif fonts (meaning “without feet”) have consistent stroke widths that remain sharp on digital displays.

Bad: Using “Full Justify” to make the left and right edges of a paragraph perfectly straight.
The Result: This creates uneven gaps between words (often called “rivers of white space”) that can cause the text to “swim” for readers with dyslexia.
Good: Always use Left Align (Ragged Right).
The Difference: Consistent spacing between words makes it much easier for the brain to recognize word shapes.

Choose the Right Size: For body text in digital documents, stick to 11pt or 12pt. For web pages (like Canvas), 16px is the standard for readability.
Mind Your Line Spacing: Avoid “Single Spacing.” Setting your line spacing to 1.5 or 1.15 provides enough “breathing room” between lines to prevent the eye from skipping a row.
Avoid All-Caps: Writing in ALL CAPS is harder to read because the “shape” of every word becomes a rectangle. Use Bold for emphasis instead.
The “Bold” Rule of Thumb: Use Bold or Italics sparingly. If an entire paragraph is bolded, nothing is emphasized. Aim to bold only the most critical 1鈥�3 words in a sentence (like a Deadline or a Key Term).
Limit Font Variety: Stick to two fonts per document鈥攐ne for headings and one for body text. Too many styles create visual clutter and confusion.
Use Standard Fonts: Stick to “web-safe” fonts that are pre-installed on most devices (like Arial, Georgia, or Verdana). This ensures your document looks the same for your students as it does for you.
Paragraph Length: Keep paragraphs to a maximum of 5鈥�6 lines. Large blocks of text are a deterrent to reading on mobile devices.
Avoid Underlining: On the web (and other mediums), people expect underlined text to be a clickable link. Underlining for emphasis can frustrate and confuse users when they try to click it and nothing happens.

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