An eclectic selection of technology with some cookery
I suffer from Irlen Syndrome and I’d like to find out how I can set my IT to help me read more easily
I use the Kindle app on various devices to establish what’s important to me. I picked the Kindle app as it appears to have the best selection of controls for adjusting text of any of the programs I tried. I’ll come back to the other programs in a later post.
Open Dyslexic is a clear winner here as it stops the text from moving. Veranda is not bad as mainstream sans-serif typefaces go, however I would then need my coloured glasses. I’ve also tried Dyslexie but this seems to have little effect for me. I’ve used Verdana on this site as I’m aware as it’s clearer to those not needing a weighted font and I’m to lazy to install Open Dyslexic. As an aside serif fonts such as Times New Roman are the worse type face for me by far.
Grey on black is the clear winner here (hence this sites colour scheme) with white on black a close second. If nothing else is available then an off white back ground with black text might ease the discomfort.
I don’t know why but Left justification makes it much easier from me to skim over a sentence at speed. I think this is to do with having a better shape to keep my place in the paragraph.
The best option here seems to be a slider scale where I can adjust the line spacing until I get the lines just far enough apart that the text becomes clear. This seems to be around double line spacing so having that option is a reasonable second option.
I’ve only tested on LCD type screens so can’t comment on E-ink screens. I’ve been able to establish that 400PPI is excellent and 324PPI is more than acceptable. I did manage to find a 133DPI screen and I kept focusing on the pixels and found I could not keep the flow going. I’d suggest 300DPI is a good threshold with anything over that being a bonus.
This makes a surprising difference, a white bezel makes my eyes feel much more at ease. I don’t really understand why but I can only assume it helps my eyes stay at a near ambient light level and courses less strain.
| Requirement | Ideal | Passable | | — | — | — | | Font | Open Dyslexic | Verdanda | | Colour | Grey on Black | White on Black | | Justification | Left justified | - | | Line spacing | Variable | Double | | Resolution | 400PPI | 300PPI | | Bezel Colour | White | Light colour? |
But what about Coloured glasses, coloured overlays, Audiobooks, and text to speech I hear you cry!
I have a set of coloured glasses (Irlen Lenses) however I’m forever taking them off. You can’t drive in them as inevitable the traffic light colours furthest from your filter colour are not very clear! People look rather unwell when you look at them through the glasses and It’s hard to make eye contact when talking to someone.
Coloured overlays (Irlen Spectral Filters) only work for me on reflected light (i.e. paper) not emitted light (screens). They also get in the way of touch screens.
I regularly use Audio books and enjoy doing so however they have their limitations. They are expensive, often lag the release of the book and can miss key information. For example the numbers and formulas in Humble Pi a comedy of maths errors.
I regularly use text to speech to review text I’ve written but when reading a book it’s not really viable. I did play with an early Kindle e-reader which had TTS but the voice was not something I wanted to listen to for 20 hours. Humans are still much better at reading books and certainly add an element by being able to do different voices for different characters. You also need to be in a room on your own / have a set of headphones to hand. I note more recent kindles offer Audible recordings.
Keywords: DYSLEXIA, IRLEN, APPLICATION SOFTWARE