Dyslexia Fonts: What Research Really Shows, and What It Means for a CV

Short answer: no “dyslexia font” has been shown to make people read faster. What helps, according to the research, is spacing between letters and words, a plain sans-serif font, and an airy layout. For a CV, the question changes: a recruiter reads it, not you.

Search for “dyslexia friendly font” and the first page will offer OpenDyslexic or Dyslexie, with the promise of letters that “stop flipping”. The promise is appealing. The measurements tell a more modest story, and a more useful one.

Do dyslexia fonts work?

Not the way people say. In 2016, Wery and Diliberto compared OpenDyslexic with Arial and Times New Roman in students with dyslexia. Result: no gain in speed or accuracy, and no student said they preferred the special font.

The same year, Marinus and her team tested Dyslexie, the other well-known font. It made people read about 7% faster than Arial. But when Arial was given the same spacing as Dyslexie, the gap disappeared. The authors conclude that the benefit comes from spacing, not from the letter shapes.

In other words, it is not the font that helps, it is the air around the letters.

So what actually helps reading?

Spacing, first. Zorzi and colleagues showed in 2012 that wider letter spacing improves reading in children with dyslexia, in both speed and accuracy. The proposed explanation is visual crowding: letters packed too tightly interfere with each other.

A plain font, next. In the study by Rello and Baeza-Yates (2013), with 48 people with dyslexia, sans-serif and upright fonts did better than serif fonts and italics.

A calm layout, finally. Dyslexia Scotland sums it all up in practical recommendations: a plain, evenly spaced font, at least 12 points, 1.5 line spacing, left-aligned rather than justified text, and an off-white or tinted background rather than pure white. It says it plainly: there is no one-size-fits-all dyslexia font.

One point matters for what follows. For skilled readers, doubled spacing slows reading down, as Zorzi and colleagues note. What helps you read does not necessarily help the person across the table.

Which font for a CV if you are dyslexic?

This is where the first page asks the wrong question. A CV has two readers: you, when you write and reread it, then the recruiter, who skims it in a few dozen seconds. Sending a CV in OpenDyslexic optimises for the wrong reader, with a font most recruiters will find unusual.

What serves both at once:

• a common sans-serif font, 10 to 12 points for body text;
• clear section headings, in a single column;
• space between blocks, rather than text squeezed to fit on one page;
• no information carried only by colour or an icon.

To write your CV, on the other hand, set up your editor however suits you: large size, wider spacing, cream background. The final file keeps standard formatting. Separating the writing tool from the document you send settles most dilemmas.

And at work, day to day?

There, your own reading is what counts, and you can adjust it. Most software lets you increase line spacing, letter spacing or size without changing anything for others. If your job involves dense documents, adapted formatting is one of the workplace adjustments you can ask for, without having to justify a diagnosis.

What we did with it at NextWorkStep

In our CV editor, the default font is Atkinson Hyperlegible. To be precise: it was designed by the Braille Institute for people with low vision, not for dyslexia. We chose it because its letters do not get confused (I, l, 1) and it still looks sober to a recruiter. The default template is a single column, with standard headings and plenty of space.

If you would first like to understand what drains you or helps you at work, beyond reading, our mini-test with no account takes three minutes. It makes no diagnosis: it describes how you work, and you decide what to do with it.