Again, to preface. This is the second of a four part series on accessible design for software engineering. Written specifically for students of CS 352 Intro to Usability Engineering.
Hey all, while developing your concepts don’t forget to make your text readable to your target audience. I’ve got some tips and links if you’re interested in how to make your text more accessible. This goes for both hand drawn and typed concepts/prototypes.
” I “
Accessible fonts can make a big difference in the readability of your program.
“Is that an uppercase ‘i’ or a lowercase ‘L’?”
Sometimes letters are so close together it makes it tiring to read, or conversely the letters are so far apart that you can’t make out individual words anymore.
There are a surprising number of factors that go into choosing an accessible font including:
- Sizing
- Styling
- Spacing
- Letter similarities
Unfortunately, there are no set in stone standards for choosing a font with all of these characteristics. But if you’re looking for some guidelines, WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) has a great article (https://webaim.org/techniques/fonts/) on typefaces and fonts. They do a much better job than I could do here, and with pictures to boot. Or if you want a more technical understanding of what actual standards there are for text, check out section 1.4 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#distinguishable). Where you can learn more about color contrasting, text spacing, and more.
