RE: Readability of international language scripts

Hi All,

In my own user research, people with intellectual disabilities have reported they prefer large font sizes. Briefly, if people prefer large font sizes because they increase comprehension, I suspect it’s because larger font sizes push out distracting content such as advertisements.

John

John Rochford
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center
Director, INDEX Program
Faculty, Family Medicine & Community Health
www.DisabilityInfo.org
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From: John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 9:48 AM
To: Steve Lee <stevelee@w3.org>
Cc: public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; Drake, Ted <Ted_Drake@intuit.com>
Subject: Re: Readability of international language scripts

Hi Steve,

Good question. From the Summary Conclusion however: "On overall preference, more than 50% of the UK participants chose 18 point sans serif, whereas more than 50% of Thai participants chose 18 point serif."

I recall back in the day when the W3C CSS WG established the base-line font-size for browsers at 16 pt., and then designers promptly modified their style sheets to: body {font-size: 80%;} (sigh)

JF

On Tue, Jan 7, 2020 at 8:03 AM Steve Lee <stevelee@w3.org<mailto:stevelee@w3.org>> wrote:
Thanks John, that IS fascinating. I wonder if there as size at which
readability starts to reduce? I understand that is the case with Western

Steve

On 07/01/2020 13:43, John Foliot wrote:
> but last year at the Web4All conference in San Francisco, there was a
> young woman who did a presentation along a similar vein. As I recall,
> she was researching readability of both Western scripts and Thai (??)
> script, and the somewhat astonishing conclusion she brought forward was
> that font *SIZE* also had a real


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​John Foliot | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC Representative
Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
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