For my usability poster, I chose to focus on those who live with dyslexia and overcome those every day challenges. For dyslexic people, they struggle with being able to properly process what their eyes are trying to send to the brain. This can manifest in different ways, some are simply just reading the words, others can be through sound and sometimes it is even the struggle know left from right. In this piece, the focus will be on dyslexia that causes the reader to see letters and words move around and become a jumbled mess. Following this will be ways in which websites can effectively design websites to help those individuals out a little.
When looking at the Greenspring Review(GSR) website, initially it does a good job of being dyslexic friendly. The single big image in the middle of the screen along with the title in the left hand corner and the navigation bar in the right corner, clean and simple. And the navigation bar continues that idea, it is short and sweet in regards to the amount of text used, which is important for dyslexic users in particular. This applies to Hick’s Law, which states, “When the users are overwhelmed with options, they may as well not choose anything at all” (2019). This is certainly applicable to dyslexic users as if they can’t read the options, they will move on. The site also uses the basic design of using black text against a white background, which is the easiest for dyslexic users as this provides great contrast for the text. They also do a good job of making the titles for the pieces bold, all capitalized, and in a bigger sized font. Allowing the dyslexic users to easily identify what is supposed to be the titles and know what else is supposed to be the description. Another very helpful aspect to the site that often gets overlooked is the amount of spacing between the lines of text. In the GSR they use good spacing between lines that allows the reader to easily track which line of text they are on, and especially for those with dyslexia, it is important for them to be distinguishably separated. The last positive of the poster concerning the GSR is the fact that they used a consistent two column layout throughout the site. Like stated in the do’s and don’ts article particularly for dyslexia, “keep a consistent layout” (2016). Having a set format makes it easy for dyslexic users to navigate the site when everything is constant and aren’t being inundated with style changes. But at the same time, the GSR does have some flaws that wouldn’t be too favorable for those with dyslexia. First one being the fact that their font color for the description of pieces is way too faint. The site uses a light gray font color against a white background and in a smaller sized font too. This is difficult for the average user as it doesn’t stand out against the background very much, but is especially troublesome for those with dyslexia as those letters begin to blend together since they’re so light. And to piggyback off this, the smaller font of the descriptions and tags are also a challenge for dyslexic users to efficiently browse through and read about pieces of work the site has to offer. Next, depending on the screen being used to view the GSR, there are way too many words for one screen at a time. When visiting the site on the Macs, there are six pieces of work visible at a time when scrolling down the section. Even for me, someone without dyslexia, I feel like I can’t decide where to start reading first, meaning the sea of words is even worse for those that are afflicted. And lastly, the about section on the site is helter skelter and the text wrapping around the poorly placed images creates a difficult reading layout. By the bottom of the page, the spacing between lines is not consistent and the breaks in descriptions are hard to decipher between a break in someone’s own bio opposed to moving on to a whole other person.
As I started to come up with my approach for the poster, I wanted to try and make it as though the poster was split in half and each side represents the good and bad. So for that reason that is how I chose the layout for doing two columns. And then in the title I wanted to reflect the sides by making parts of the title on the right side reflect bad designs for those with dyslexia as the bright colors would be difficult for them to read. The same reasoning is applied as to why I chose to make the word “bad” red, to be indicative of how the changing colors is unappealing to those with dyslexia. I also added an image of one of those tests that are used to indicate that a real user is not a computer bot. The text has a wavy effect on it and has a line through it, which really makes it a struggle for someone with that impairment to decipher. Outside of that, I wanted the poster to be telling of what dyslexic people appreciate, which is why it is a fairly bland poster, not to pull their attention away from what’s important.
Work Cited
Pun, K. (2016, September 2). Dos and don’ts on designing for accessibility. Retrieved from https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/
Tyrkiel, K. (2019). 7 Psychological Principles for Better UX. Retrieved from https://livesession.io/blog/7-psychological-principles-for-better-ux/