Dyslexia-friendly text and documents

Adopting best practice for dyslexic readers has the advantage of making documents easier on the eye for everyone.

Media

• Use cream or a soft pastel coloured paper.

Font

• Use a plain, evenly spaced font such as Comic Sans, Sassoon or Verdana. New font available Open Dyslexic
• Font size should be 12-14 point.
• Use dark coloured text on a light (not white) background.

Headings and Emphasis

• Avoid underlining and italics: these tend to make the text appear to run together. Use bold instead.
• AVOID TEXT IN BLOCK CAPITALS: this is much harder to read.
• For Headings, use larger font size in bold, lower case.
• Boxes and borders can be used for effective emphasis.

Layout

• Use left-justified with ragged right edge.
• Avoid narrow columns (as used in newspapers).
• Lines should not be too long: 60 to70 characters.
• Avoid cramping material and using long, dense paragraphs: space it out.
• Line spacing of 1.5 is preferable.
• Avoid starting a sentence at the end of a line.
• Use bullet points and numbering rather than continuous prose.

Writing Style

• Use short, simple sentences in a direct style.
• Give instructions clearly. Avoid long sentences of explanation.
• Use active rather than passive voice.
• Avoid double negatives.
• Be concise.

Increasing accessibility

• Flow charts are ideal for explaining procedures.
• Pictograms and graphics help to locate information.
• Lists of ‘do’s and ‘don’ts’ are more useful than continuous text to highlight aspects of good practice.
• Avoid abbreviations if possible or provide a glossary of abbreviations and jargon.
• For long documents include a contents page at the beginning and an index at end.