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Accessibility for Academics
Many of us have preferred fonts, and other habits in the way we format text in paragraphs and lists. Here again, we can consider best practices for formatting to support neurodiversity, and students with special requirements.
More and more, style sets within popular software include accessible fonts for paragraph or normal text, while perhaps having more floral serif fonts for big headings. But if you modify or create your own style sets, bear in mind that font typeface and size can be optimized for accessibility.
Lato Typeface. To see many iterations of Lato fonts, see Lato at Google's font library.
image by Gtk3 via Wikipedia/Wikimedia
Font, or Rather Typeface
Font, or Rather Typeface
We use the word font as a shorthand for a set of stylized characters that together make up a matching set. But technically, the art we see in that character set is a "typeface," and different iterations on that typeface, of different sizes, weights (bold, for example), and so on each represent a font. So quickly, Times New Roman is a typeface; Times New Roman 12 pt size is a font. Both words are helpful for accessibility.
Non-Serif Typefaces
Non-Serif Typefaces
If typeface matters for accessibility, generally a non-serif typeface is best. Some dyslexic and visually-impaired readers believe they can more easily read simple text that lack serifs (the "strokes" or protrusions on letters in typefaces such as Times New Roman or Garamond.) Popular non-serif typefaces include Arial, Helvetica, Futura, Open Sans, and, the typeface you are reading now, Lato.
Larger fonts
Larger fonts
Generally speaking, larger font is better, with practical limitations. Obviously, to be efficient, text of whole paragraphs, pages, and most documents needs to be kept at a small size, relative to screen dimensions. (This is even trickier with widespread smartphone reading.) But generally, most fonts are widely accessible at 11 pt (15px). On web pages, going to 12 pt or even larger may be sensible, if the overall presentation will bear it.
Also, recognize that even some non-serif fonts can be challenging to read. Some, such as Agency FB or Impact, are styled very narrow, which can be fine for larger headings, but less so for body or paragraph text.
A selection of typefaces available. For many years, Times New Roman was a popular default font, but Calibri is the current default in Microsoft Word 365.
Non-serif fonts are generally easier to read at length. However, there are exceptions: Agency FB is narrow, and thus not as accessible as, say, Calibri or Helvetica
D2L Web Pages
D2L Web Pages
In most places, for example news items and dropboxes, D2L's editor defaults to a size slightly larger than 12 pt, which is perfect. But the web page editor (New → Add a File in Content) in our D2L course spaces still default to a much smaller (12px) size. You can easily change this in the toolbar to 15px or larger, which is more appropriate.
D2L uses Lato font across their interface, although their old web page editor still uses Verdana. Either is a great non-serif font; in COLI, we often use Lato just for consistency with D2L.
Color Contrast
Color Contrast
Be sure that your text and background colors have sufficient contrast. You can investigate what this means with an easy web search, but an easy way to ensure it is to simply use black text on a white background.
However, you can establish high contrast with subtle departures from black and white. Here at Canisius, an excellent choice for text is a dark blue: -#oc234f is a good hex code. this page's header bar and headings are a good example of the latter. It's a school color, and makes text high contrast but a little softer on the eyes. As noted above, do not use colors by themselves as emphasis or marking text as more significant, since screen reader software will not, by default, describe text color to users.
A lot of text editor and word processor software installs a line between paragraphs, either close to or a full character height. You may not prefer this, and it is often removable in settings. But leave these clear spaces, since they assist readers to discern paragraph breaks more easily. Try to not "scrunch" text vertically, even if the software permits it, just to cram more on to a page or in a space. Adequate line spacing is also an important accessibility feature for neurodiversity and visual impairment.
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