Effectiveness of Lexend and OpenDyslexic Fonts in Improving Reading

Reading difficulties like dyslexia affect a significant portion of the population, making it challenging to read quickly and accurately. To address this, specialized fonts have been developed to enhance readability by reducing visual stress and cognitive load during reading.

Lexend and OpenDyslexic are two such fonts designed to help individuals (especially those with dyslexia or other reading struggles) improve reading speed and comprehension through tailored typography. Below, we explore the scientific evidence and expert insights on how these fonts impact reading performance – focusing on reading speed, comprehension, and cognitive load – and how they are used in practice.

Lexend: A Font Designed for Readability

Lexend is a collection of fonts created by educator Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup in the early 2000s with the goal of “changing the way the world reads.” It was developed based on the idea that typography can be adjusted like an “eyeglass prescription” to fit an individual reader’s needs. Lexend’s design incorporates several evidence-based principles to reduce reading difficulty:

• Reduced Visual Clutter: Lexend uses a sans-serif style and clean letterforms to minimize decorative elements, thereby reducing “visual noise” that can distract or confuse readers. Distinct letter shapes (e.g., differentiating lowercase l from i or j) help prevent letter confusion.
• Wider Letter Forms: The font has slightly expanded letter widths and a high x-height (taller lowercase letters) to improve character recognition. This makes each character more distinguishable, so readers are less likely to misread similar-looking letters.
• Increased Spacing (Hyper-Spacing): Lexend introduces extra space between letters and words (“hyper-expansion” of character spacing) to alleviate crowding and masking effects. More whitespace gives the eyes a brief lag time to process each letter, reducing the chance that letters blur together or “disappear” for the reader.

Lexend was released in multiple styles (Deca, Exa, Giga, etc.), each with different spacing and scaling, so that educators or users can choose the variant that works best. In 2018, Lexend was updated into a variable font that allows fine-tuned control over weight, width, and spacing – analogous to adjusting a prescription – to suit individual needs. This personalized approach recognizes that no single setting helps everyone equally, but adjusting typography to the reader can optimize readability.

Impact on Reading Speed and Performance (Lexend)

Early testing and research on Lexend indicate notable improvements in reading fluency for many readers, including those with dyslexia and other reading challenges. In one controlled experiment, students reading text in Lexend fonts achieved significantly higher words-correct-per-minute (WCPM) scores than when reading the same material in a default font (Times New Roman). The improvement in reading speed and accuracy was statistically significant (p = 0.014), suggesting that the chance of this difference being random is very low. 

In practical terms, these studies found an “immediate improvement in reading performance” when students switched to Lexend. A doctoral research study by Shaver-Troup likewise concluded that font style does affect reading outcomes, with Lexend’s design factors leading to better oral reading fluency in second-grade students.

Importantly, Lexend’s benefits aren’t limited to dyslexic readers. Shaver-Troup observed that even proficient readers (or those who simply felt fatigued or anxious) read more easily with Lexend’s enhanced clarity and spacing. By reducing visual stressors like crowded text, the font frees up cognitive resources – readers spend less effort deciphering letters and more on understanding content. 

This effectively lowers cognitive load during reading, which can improve comprehension and endurance while reading. In fact, Lexend’s creators report that using the font led to improvements in reading retention and comprehension in addition to speed. The idea is that clearer, cleaner text presentation helps readers retain information better because their brains aren’t strained by the act of decoding the print.

Several experts and organizations have taken note of Lexend’s effectiveness:

• A creative director who adopted Lexend as his default browser font noted it helped him read “more quickly and fluently” than other typefaces. By enhancing legibility, Lexend improved his reading speed and reduced the effort needed to get through text.
• The font has been embraced in real-world settings. For example, CosmosDirekt, a German insurance company, chose Lexend for their websites and documents to make sure even dense information is easily digestible for customers with reading difficulties. After switching to Lexend, they reported positive feedback and found the text more accessible to a wider audience.
• Technology platforms have also supported Lexend: Google added Lexend to Google Fonts and made it available in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, explicitly citing its design goal of improving reading speeds. This wide availability has led to increased use in educational technology and digital content, giving many users access to Lexend’s readability benefits.

Overall, the evidence suggests that Lexend can boost reading fluency (speed and accuracy) for a broad range of readers. By tailoring the font’s appearance to human visual processing needs, it reduces the micro-delays and errors in reading, thereby making reading faster and less tiring. Readers using Lexend often experience smoother reading with fewer mistakes, which ultimately can improve comprehension when reading longer passages. As one summary put it, Lexend’s combination of sans-serif letterforms, larger text scaling, and extra spacing “created a significant improvement in reading fluency for most readers”.

OpenDyslexic: A Font for Dyslexic Readers

OpenDyslexic is another font developed to assist people with dyslexia and reading difficulties. Created in 2011 by programmer Abelardo González as an open-source project, OpenDyslexic was inspired by an earlier font called Dyslexie. Its design intentionally deviates from conventional fonts in ways meant to address common reading errors that dyslexic individuals report. Key design features of OpenDyslexic include:

• Unique Letter Shapes: Each character in OpenDyslexic has a distinct shape to minimize confusion. Letters that are mirror-images or lookalikes (such as b vs. d, p vs. q) are designed to avoid mirroring. For instance, strokes are added or adjusted so that rotated versions of a letter don’t resemble a different letter. This reduces the chance of letter reversals.
• Heavier Bottom Weighting: OpenDyslexic letters have thicker strokes at the bottom (a heavier base). The idea is to give letters a visual “gravity” pulling them downward, which may prevent the sensation of letters flipping or swapping (sometimes described as text “swimming” on the page). The heavier bottoms help reinforce the baseline, anchoring each letter in place for the reader’s eye.
• Large Open Spaces: The font features large open apertures and counters – for example, the openings in letters like c, e, a, and the holes in o, d, b are widened. This makes each character more distinguishable and fights against crowding.
• Increased Spacing and Clean Styling: Similar to Lexend, OpenDyslexic uses more spacing between letters and words than typical fonts, and it forgoes serifs (little decorative flicks) that could clutter the text. The overall look is relatively simple and high-contrast, aimed at maximum legibility.

OpenDyslexic’s design principles are rooted in the notion that altering letterforms can mitigate some visual perceptual issues associated with dyslexia. By making letters less ambiguous and more stable on the line, the font strives to reduce reading errors and improve comfort. Its accessibility has led to it being freely available and incorporated into various apps and devices (from web browser extensions to e-readers), which we will touch on shortly.

Impact on Reading Speed, Accuracy, and Comprehension (OpenDyslexic)

Scientific studies on OpenDyslexic have produced mixed results, with some showing little benefit over standard fonts and others noting improvements in certain areas. Here’s a summary of the evidence:

• Reading Speed and Accuracy: Several controlled studies have tested whether OpenDyslexic actually helps people read faster or more accurately. A notable study in 2017 examined children with dyslexia reading text in OpenDyslexic versus in Arial and Times New Roman. The findings showed no improvement in reading rate or accuracy with OpenDyslexic – in fact, the dyslexic students read slightly slower and less accurately in OpenDyslexic than in the mainstream fonts. 
  
  The difference wasn’t large, but it indicated that simply using a dyslexia-focused font did not automatically enhance basic reading metrics. Additionally, none of the students preferred the OpenDyslexic font over the others. This aligns with other research: an earlier study in 2013 (Rello & Baeza-Yates) found OpenDyslexic yielded comparable reading speed to familiar fonts like Arial, but it scored poorly on eye movement measures (like fixation time per word) and was the least preferred font by readers in the test. 
  
  These results suggest that OpenDyslexic may not universally boost raw reading speed and can even introduce slight inefficiencies (possibly due to its unconventional letter shapes requiring some adjustment by the reader).

• Reading Comprehension and Cognitive Load: On a more positive note, recent evidence points to benefits of OpenDyslexic for reading comprehension and comfort, especially in longer reading tasks. A 2019 study of adult readers (both dyslexic and non-dyslexic) had participants read passages in OpenDyslexic vs. Times New Roman while tracking their eye movements and understanding of the text. The researchers found that reading comprehension improved when using OpenDyslexic, for dyslexic readers in particular. Interestingly, reading speed was not significantly affected – participants read at roughly the same pace as in Times New Roman.
  
  However, the eye-tracking data revealed a different reading strategy with OpenDyslexic: readers made more frequent but shorter eye fixations. Among the dyslexic group, OpenDyslexic led to shorter fixation durations and fewer erratic eye movements (like unnecessary re-reading). Shorter, more efficient fixations are interpreted by the authors as a sign of reduced cognitive load – readers’ eyes weren’t lingering as long trying to decode each word, implying the text was a bit easier to process. 
  
  In other words, while they didn’t read faster in words per minute, the dyslexic readers were able to understand more of what they read with the same time/effort, likely because the font helped ease the visual processing. This study provides empirical evidence that OpenDyslexic can facilitate reading comprehension in longer texts, even if it doesn’t speed up the mechanical act of reading. It suggests that for some readers, the font reduces the mental work of deciphering words, allowing more focus on meaning (hence better comprehension).

• User Experience and Preference: Despite the varied outcomes in performance metrics, it’s worth noting that many readers report subjective benefits from OpenDyslexic. Dyslexic individuals often say that the font “feels easier” on their eyes or that they tire less quickly when reading in OpenDyslexic, even if their measured speed isn’t dramatically higher. This kind of user feedback has given OpenDyslexic a strong following. 
  
  Both OpenDyslexic and its predecessor Dyslexie have garnered awards and attention in design and education communities, indicating a widespread belief in their usefulness. OpenDyslexic’s presence as an optional font in popular platforms – for example, it’s offered as a reading font on Wikipedia, Instapaper, Kobo e-readers, Amazon Kindle, and via browser extensions – speaks to its real-world adoption. 
  
  These platforms wouldn’t include it if there weren’t demand from users who find it helpful. Thus, even if lab studies show neutral results on average, individual differences mean some people truly do read better or more comfortably with OpenDyslexic, and for them the font is an important tool.

• Expert Opinions: Some experts caution that dyslexia-focused fonts like OpenDyslexic are not a standalone solution for reading difficulties. Dyslexia is primarily a language-processing issue (connecting sounds to letters) rather than just a visual issue. As such, researchers like Joanne Pierson and groups like the International Dyslexia Association remind us that interventions must also target phonological skills, not only visual tweaks. 
  
  A literacy expert from the W3C task force noted that “research doesn’t really have a lot of evidence showing that these special fonts help [people] read faster or make fewer mistakes”, suggesting educators shouldn’t rely solely on a font to improve reading. On the other hand, accessible design is still important: the British Dyslexia Association’s guidelines say using clear, legible fonts (often simple sans-serifs like Arial or Verdana) and good formatting improves readability for everyone, not just dyslexic readers. 
  
  Essentially, font choice can reduce eye strain and cognitive load for readers, but specialized fonts are just one way to achieve this. The consensus is that while OpenDyslexic isn’t a magic fix, it can be part of a larger toolkit to make reading more accessible. If a reader finds it subjectively easier, that psychological comfort can be meaningful in keeping them engaged and confident.

Real-World Usage and Support

Both Lexend and OpenDyslexic have moved from research and development into practical use cases, reflecting a blend of scientific support and community trust in their benefits:

• Lexend in Practice: Lexend’s integration into Google’s products (Fonts library and G Suite apps) has greatly increased its visibility. Schools and educators experimenting with Universal Design for Learning have reported success using Lexend to help struggling readers in the classroom setting. Companies focused on accessibility have also adopted Lexend in their branding or user interfaces to ensure content is easily readable by all. The anecdotal successes – like students improving their reading grades after using Lexend, or readers feeling less eye strain – align with the research that backs its effectiveness.

• OpenDyslexic in Practice: OpenDyslexic, being free and open-source, is widely available. It has a large user community and is often recommended in online forums and resources for dyslexia. Many assistive tech tools include OpenDyslexic as an option. For example, popular e-reader devices (Kindle, Kobo) and reading apps let users switch to OpenDyslexic for a more dyslexia-friendly reading experience. Web browser extensions can convert web pages into OpenDyslexic text on the fly, and some libraries or schools provide materials in OpenDyslexic upon request. 
  
  The real-world usage data shows that there is considerable uptake – millions of readers have tried the font, and at least anecdotally, a portion of them prefer it. This practical adoption underscores that some people find it helpful, even if not every study finds a large objective difference.

• Design Communities and Awards: Both fonts have gained recognition in the design and accessibility communities. Dyslexie (the inspiration for OpenDyslexic) won innovation awards for its approach, and OpenDyslexic has been featured in media as an innovative accessibility tool. Lexend has been discussed in academic labs and even referenced by tech companies like Adobe and Apple for its assistive potential. This kind of recognition lends credence to their effectiveness and encourages further testing and refinement of readability-focused typography.

Conclusion

Scientific studies and user experiences indicate that font design can play a meaningful role in reading performance. Lexend and OpenDyslexic, through different approaches, both aim to make reading easier:

• Lexend has demonstrated improvements in reading speed and fluency, with readers often able to read more quickly and accurately in Lexend than in traditional fonts. Its variable design also shows promise in reducing cognitive load, as readers don’t have to fight against visual clutter and can focus on comprehension.
• OpenDyslexic shows strength in improving reading comprehension and comfort for some readers. While it may not universally increase reading speed, it can make the act of reading feel less strenuous – an effect linked to more efficient eye movements and potentially lower cognitive effort for dyslexic readers.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of these fonts can vary from person to person. They are not a cure for dyslexia or reading difficulties, but they serve as useful tools that remove some barriers. By adopting principles of clear and reader-friendly design, Lexend and OpenDyslexic help create a more accessible reading experience.Notably, these fonts are finding their way into mainstream applications. 

For instance, our teleprompter app at Teleprompter.com geared towards accessibility now supports both Lexend and OpenDyslexic fonts, allowing people who struggle with reading to follow along with spoken text more easily. This integration means users can tailor their reading experience in real time – choosing Lexend or OpenDyslexic within the app – to improve their reading speed and understanding on the fly. Such real-world support highlights the growing recognition of how font choices can assist readers, ultimately empowering individuals with tools to read with greater ease and confidence.

Sources: The information above is drawn from research findings and expert analyses, including studies on reading performance with special fonts and insights from dyslexia and typography specialists, as well as reports of usage in educational and professional contexts. These sources collectively reinforce the view that Lexend and OpenDyslexic can positively impact reading speed, comprehension, and cognitive load for many readers, especially those who need it most.