Inside dyslexia: the contextual knowledge and methodology of a practice-led research through typographic design and autoethnography

Abstract

There is increased interest in recent literature on the disfluency effect in an effort to contextualize the outcomes for typography research that is grounded in functional readability. Recently, a small group of typographic and legibility researchers have begun to call for more collaboration to generate knowledge that is useful and practical ( Thiessen, Beier & Keage, 2020). This article presents a practice-led design research project that utilises iterative drawing and typographic arrangements through an autoethnographic approach, to convey personal experience with dyslexia. The project reflects on the question: How can iterative drawing and typographic composition be used to graphically express one’s subjective dyslexic learning experience? As a secondary question that is particularly focused on practice, is how the project can contribute to provide insights to a non-dyslexic audience of the word comprehension and typographic disfluency facing people with dyslexic conditions. The research is informed by a range of contextual practice, practitioners, and literature, into the states and conditions of the dyslexic experience, the use of typographic adaption and Risograph printing. The project is grounded as a practice-led approach, where creative practice and research are complementary but distinctive. The research is based within the world of concern defined by practice while the practitioner researcher is at the centre of the research (Vear, 2022). To elicit a dyslexic perspective, the project employs autoethnography as a strategy for gathering and evidence interpretation through a critical illustration and typographic design process. The research contributes to current discourses to areas such as those related to the typographic principles of visual cuing and emphasis as well as other broader areas such as how we may be able to determine threshold for disfluency, and what impact graphical distractions have on the disfluency effect.