Over the last years, several studies have suggested a possible link between dyslexia and deficits in low-level visual processing (e.g., excessive crowding). At the same time, specially designed "dyslexia-friendly" fonts appeared on the market. This class of fonts presents two main features: the particular graphic characteristics of the letterform designed to avoid confusion between similarly shaped letters, and wider inter-letter and inter-word spacing to limit crowding. The literature testing the efficacy of "dyslexiafriendly" fonts in improving reading accuracy and increasing reading speed is controversial. We evaluated the impact of letterform (with vs. without dyslexia-friendly graphic features), inter-letter spacing (standard vs. increased), and inter-word spacing (standard vs. increased) on reading accuracy and speed. Two groups of 64 children each, with and without dyslexia, read aloud 8 equivalent texts. The data collected failed to show any effect from the letterform. As regards spacing, the data showed that reading speed is impaired by an increase in inter-letter spacing not combined with an adequate increase in inter-word spacing.
Abstract:The project "topography of Dante's inferno" is an experiment on alternative mode of access to a complex text relying on an evident topographical structure. The artifact (a website) is designed with the aim of introducing young students (11-14 years old) to a text usually read and studied by older students (16-19 years old). The design of the artifact was based on the theories of Sinsemía applied to interaction design, and the testing focused on (1) usability and (2) on the understanding of the topography of the poem as a precondition for understanding the text.
We reflect specifically on the curriculum for bachelor’s level program in communication design. We propose a model of education which we define as “metadisciplinary” and which is grounded on the acquisition of competences rather than the acquisition of specific contents. Our objective is to show how a metadisciplinary didactic model can benefit from the weak epistemological status of the knowledge base of communication design. According to the idea that didactics can be treated as a science of design, we propose a model of educational design based on a metadisciplinary stance.
First we describe two fundamental aspects of the model proposed: (1) the development of habitus of thought and action and (2) the distributed and collective nature of expert knowledge. Next, we discuss the notion of curriculum architecture. Finally, we describe a basic set of metadisciplinary competences that we have identified for students in the field of communication design.
In this paper we discuss the theoretical linguistic and graphic preconditions of the design of PASS, a glyph system which we designed for use in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) habilitative practices that has been released under open source licence.
We highlight the relevance of graphic design supporting sustainable practices for people with Autism Spectrum Di- sorders (ASD), in a context in which the o er of public healthcare services for rehabilitation is insufficient.
We present the context in which the AAC is adopted and how a glyph system can be used by people with ASD to learn a language. is particular group of users can access a language by using the glyph system as an interlanguage or as an alternative language.
We analyse the most common glyph systems (ARASAAC, PCS, WLS, Blissymbolics), highlighting their strengths and weaknesses from a graphic and linguistic point of view.
We present the theoretical background of the design process for the PASS glyph system.
In particular, we provide an in-depth description of the graphic design strategy, which aims to develop a systematic and consistent approach to the construction of the glyphs. This approach is grounded in a reflection on how to solve the linguistic problems raised by the valency model and Chomsky’s generative grammar theory in the visual domain.
We have designed the core of the glyph system by detecting the pertinent visual and linguistic variables in literature, with the objective of developing the system for clinical experimentation.
"The interest in discovering the limits of legibility has not ceased to interest those who use letters in typography and, to a certain extent, those who study the reading process.
Sometimes the debate on the subject is marred by sensationalism.
The research does not aim to identify a particular typeface and to promote it as “best for legibility”. The research aims to identify what are the possible reasons that make one typeface better than another and to make this knowledge available to the community, so that the typefaces can guarantee better reading performance, if this is possible."
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