Avoid green and red/pink, as these colours are difficult for those who have colour vision deficiencies (colour blindness).

Use dark coloured text on a light (not white) background.

Use sufficient contrast levels between background and text.

Avoid background patterns or pictures and distracting surrounds.

Ensure hyperlinks look different from headings and normal text.

Add extra space around headings and between paragraphs.

In Word, you’ll find these tools in the ‘Layout’ tab:

Use formatting tools for text alignment, justification, indents, lists, line and paragraph spacing to support assistive technology users.

If further emphasis is required, then use bold.

For headings, use a font size that is at least 20% larger than the normal text.

In Word, you’ll find these tools in the ‘Home’ tab: Use headings and styles to create consistent structure to help people navigate through your content.

Avoid using all capital letters and uppercase letters for continuous text.

Avoid underlining and italics as this can make the text appear to run together and cause crowding.

It should be proportional to inter-word spacing 1.5/150% is preferable.

Some dyslexic people fine that larger line spacing improves readability.

Inter-word spacing should be at least 3.5 times the inter-letter spacing.

If letter spacing is excessive it can reduce readability.

Larger inter-letter / character spacing (sometimes called tracking) improves readability, ideally around 35% of the average letter width.

Some dyslexic readers may request a larger font.

Font size should be 12-14 point or equivalent (e.g.

Alternatives include Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet, Calibri, Open Sans.

Use sans serif fonts, such as Arial and Comic Sans, as letters can appear less crowded.When making changes consider all the ways that you use written communications, such as emails, presentations, web pages and printed materials.Ĭonsider these principles in combination with other accessibility guidance such as the Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG). Adopting these principles for dyslexic readers has the advantage of making all written communication easier on the eye for everyone. This Style Guide provides principles that can help ensure that written material considers the difficulties experienced by some dyslexic people and allows for the use of text to speech to facilitate ease of reading.

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