[HN Gopher] Inclusive Sans: Text font designed for accessibility...
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Inclusive Sans: Text font designed for accessibility and
readability
Author : disadvantage
Score : 44 points
Date : 2024-03-25 19:18 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oliviaking.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oliviaking.com)
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| This typeface bears more than a passing resemblance to Circular,
| whose owner is known for litigating unauthorized usage. I'm
| concerned this will become a problem for Inclusive Sans or its
| users.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Typefaces are not protected by intellectual property law.
| Fonts, as computer software, are, but it should be easy to show
| that Inclusive Sans is a completely different program. I
| wouldn't worry about it, personally.
| tzmlab wrote:
| Another great accessible font - Atkinson Hyperlegible [0]
|
| [0] - https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont
| rob74 wrote:
| Actually I like that one better! For instance, Inclusive Sans
| boasts about its "clear distinction between I [uppercase i], l
| [lowercase L] and 1", but the lowercase L is just a vertical
| bar, so might as well be mistaken for an I if there is no I to
| compare it to. In Atkinson Hyperlegible, the lowercase L has a
| slight "tail" which helps distinguish it - and the serifs on
| the uppercase i feel a bit less jarring.
| kibwen wrote:
| Agreed, the font has a lot of playful character without
| giving away that it was designed for a specific functional
| purpose. And it looks like it's freely licensed as well, so
| not only is it free to use, but it's also free to ship
| alongside things.
|
| However, note that it does feature mirrored "b" and "d",
| which can be difficult to distinguish for people with
| dyslexia.
| rob74 wrote:
| That's probably because they focus on people with low
| vision - but yeah, they could have added the same "tail"
| which the lowercase L has to the lowercase D too, that
| wouldn't have felt out of place...
| jszymborski wrote:
| It is a bit weird that Inclusive Sans' lower case L doesn't
| have a tail considering this font is very "tail-forward" for
| lack of a better word.
|
| The thing that irks me the most about Atkinson Hyperlegible
| is that there is no medium weight and the bold weight is way
| too heavy for many applications. I also just kinda like the
| way Inclusive Sans looks more, but the Atkinson letterforms
| are definitely easily identified even when blurred.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Easily a superior font.
| mikae1 wrote:
| And Lexend[1][2].
|
| [1] https://www.lexend.com
|
| [2] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lexend
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Anything in monospace?
| Etheryte wrote:
| Any font that's designed for accessibility should always run an
| actual study to measure whether they managed to hit their mark or
| not. There's countless fonts out there designed to ameliorate
| dyslexia and other similar conditions that are in practice
| actually worse than a regular font, despite best intentions. This
| is something you can measure, you don't have to guess.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> Any font that 's designed for accessibility should always
| run an actual study to measure whether they actually hit their
| mark or not._
|
| https://www.lexend.com/
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Why does it want my e-mail? It doesn't seem very inclusive to
| require a signup just to download a font.
|
| Also no information on the licence that I could see.
| echoangle wrote:
| It's available on google fonts.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Thanks, I just saw the link further down this thread.
|
| Weird it's not on their website, but it seems to be just
| a case of poor communication rather than anything
| nefarious.
| jcotton42 wrote:
| It is not a good sign that the first thing on that site is an
| eye-searing white-on-red banner.
| nolongerthere wrote:
| Did anyone else find the green background and the white text
| clash in a way that made it difficult to read? I found that
| ironic given the article.
| kps wrote:
| Not because of the hue, but because the page doesn't respect
| `prefers-color-scheme`, which makes it hard to take any claim
| of 'accessibility' seriously.
|
| Edit: nor `prefers-reduced-motion`, neither.
| ppbjj wrote:
| Oh, come on. They're using Squarespace. Maybe complain about
| the state of WYSIWYG editors before dismissing someone's
| work.
| eadmund wrote:
| > Did anyone else find the green background and the white text
| clash in a way that made it difficult to read?
|
| No, but only because with Javascript disabled there is
| literally nothing but an olive green page. Truly remarkable,
| given that it is supposed to be inclusive.
| pqdbr wrote:
| This is an honest question: are you browsing the web in 2024
| with javascript disabled?
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| You'd be surprised by the number of people who does that.
| Not everyone has a fancy browser and _not everyone can
| see_.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| If you cannot see, what use is a font?
| geraldwhen wrote:
| The fade in effect made me nauseous. I hate animation on
| webpages unless I'm seeking out gifs.
| andy99 wrote:
| Yeah I still can't tell if I'm just overanalyzing because it's
| supposed to be easy to read, but I found the webpage,
| especially the italicized bit, pretty jarring, even in contrast
| with my usual squinting at HN's tiny font on my phone.
| nottorp wrote:
| Same here. I can't evaluate the font because of the background.
|
| Don't see why I should wait for images to fade in either.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Obligatory: the most accessible font is usually a font your
| readers are already familiar with. This font looks distinctive,
| and personally I kinda like it, but it's not a magic wand you can
| wave over a document to make it more accessible.
| jraph wrote:
| Yeah, on the web, just use font-family: sans-serif (or, now
| that browsers don't systematically default to a serif font
| anymore, just nothing at all) and let the user see the default
| font, or the font they picked. It also improves everything else
| in contrast with a web font: it saves bandwidth and therefore
| cost, it saves page load time and therefore SEO and user
| retention. And it's not worse, nay better, than the font you
| arbitrarily picked.
|
| The default font needs to be dyslexic friendly on a dyslexic's
| computer if it's not already, and it should be the OS's job to
| ensure this.
|
| I am afraid there's no one size fits all wrt fonts and
| accessibility because I suspect different conditions have
| different requirements, so you can't pick yourself as a web
| designer.
|
| We indeed need dyslexic friendly fonts among others so dyslexic
| people can configure their devices with one that they like,
| fonts that are indeed actually proven as being effective as
| another commenter said. No proof: it didn't happen.
| flymasterv wrote:
| This font is yet another case of accessibility advocates
| entirely missing the point of web accessibility.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Is it actually? Or is it a font designer, who doesn't know
| much about 'accessibility' give it a go?
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| But letting the recipient's browser decide means they
| wouldn't be able to show everyone else how inclusive that
| are.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Was going to ask, wouldn't something like Times New Roman be
| the most accessible just cause people are used to it? Plus,
| serifs make the letters more recognizable.
| cybervegan wrote:
| Any reason why "Pp" is missing from the typeface sampler?
| tomtomistaken wrote:
| Oh wow, the text is so much easier for me to read! Thanks for
| sharing!
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Another good font for this is OpenDyslexic
| https://opendyslexic.org/
| seydor wrote:
| Is there evidence that this is more legible? Because we don't
| read individual characters (but chunks) so making them
| individually distinguishable doesn't seem like it would have much
| of an effect.
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(page generated 2024-03-25 23:00 UTC)