Hello
I work with adults with learning disabilities, many of whom are picture-readers or who read basic words.
I know that Comic Sans and Arial are recognised as good clear fonts, but are other ‘sans’ fonts just as good?
We currently use Open Sans as our standard font.
Best wishes
Phil
We use century gothic. It has "a"s that look like handwritten ones, as does comic sans.
Hello
Thank you for your email about Century Gothic - I’ll look into it.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
There are several documents about making written stuff readable. Try Inclusion Europe’s “Information for All: Standards for making information easy to read and understand”
Also have a look at “Making Written Information Easier to Understand for People with Learning Disabilities” by the Department of Health.
They have useful stuff about fonts, font size, layout, colour and other important things. If you cannot access these contact me and I will email links. peter_d_taylor@hotmail.com
same here - Century Gothic
I did some work with service users a few years ago where they choose this as they prefer the ‘a’ to look like you said a hand written ‘a’ also they said words looked better and were easier to pick out key words they knew etc.
Phil
May be worth looking at the suggestions on fonts from the British Dyslexia Association, see https://bdatech.org/what-technology/typefaces-for-dyslexia/ . Their suggestions are linked from this web page, including:
The SaLT Team I worked with did some research with people with learning disabilities a few years ago which also suggested Century Gothic was the favourite (particularly because of the ‘single storey’ ‘a’ and lack of serifs). The only down side to that font is the question mark which is less clear, so we ended up substituting a question mark from Verdana or Calibri (a bit of an irritating process). If anyone knows of a font with a single story a and a sensible question mark, would love to hear of it!
Hi Phil
We use a font called Fs Me which was produced by Mencap for people with learning disabilities but can be expensive but is used for leaflets and posters. Otherwise we use Comic Sans and Arial.We prefer Comic Sans because of the the format of letters like ‘a’ and ‘g’
Hello Peter
Thank you so much for the Inclusion Europe and Dept of Health document
details - I have downloaded them and will be looking through them carefully.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
Hello Peter
Thank you for the link to the British Dyslexia Association website - I will
explore this further.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
Hello Winterstar
Thank you for suggesting Century Gothic - it seems very popular!
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
Hello Sharon
Thank you so much for suggesting the Fs me font - other people have
suggested it too so I will look into it.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
Hello Alix
Thank you so much for suggesting Century Gothic - it seems a very popular
choice for people who have responded to my query.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
There’s a nice Accessibility Guide - but basically they recommend any clear sans font (and there are hundreds of them) - we like ubuntu
We also use FSMe from Mencap but you do have to pay for the use of this font plus it can cause problems if you send your document to someone who doesn’t have access to the font (unless it’s a PDF of course). We find Century Gothic a good alternative for the reasons mentioned by others on here. A word of caution about the use of Comic Sans - we avoid this font unless the information is aimed specifically at children or is supposed to be ‘fun and frivolous’ as this font can be seen as ‘childish’ and a bit condescending to adults with a learning disability. One particularly bad example was an easy read document about death written in Comic Sans - not very appropriate!
Hello Simon
Thank you for the link to the accessibility guide - it’s great that any
sans serif font will be good.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com
Hello Samantha
Thank you for your response about FSMe - it’s a font that several people
have suggested, but not really viable for us because of the cost and the
need for recipients also to have access to the font.
I take your point about Comic Sans and choosing documents on which it is
used carefully.
Best wishes
Phil
Phil Mack| Surrey Choices Learning Officer| Surrey Choices | 07713 479696|
phil.mack@surreychoices.com
Surrey Choices Ltd., Noke Hub, Noke Drive, Redhill RH1 4AX
Visit our website www.surreychoices.com