In today’s digital age, reading can be a challenge. Whether it’s for work or school, the demand to process and understand large volumes of information can feel intense, impacting not just our performance but also our mental well-being. It can sometimes feel challenging simply due to the way that text is presented on your computer screen. When reading a news article, for example, text can sometimes feel dense or cluttered, making it hard to work your way through. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

The Science Behind Personalized Reading

Revolutionary research at the APPLY Lab at the University of Toronto Mississauga is shedding light on this topic. Led by Dr. Anna Kosovicheva and Dr. Benjamin Wolfe, the team is exploring how customized fonts and personalized reading settings can help individuals read faster and understand better. In a world where the ability to understand text can make or break academic success, personalized font settings make way for a more inclusive and efficient learning environment. By changing the appearance of text to individual user’s needs, these innovations aim to improve reading performance. The goal is to create adaptable reading interventions that support the unique needs of every reader.

How does text impact reading performance for different individuals?

The reason behind the variation in how fonts impact reading performance for different individuals may be more complicated than we initially thought. While it may be tempting to think that people would read faster in the fonts that they prefer, this notion doesn’t hold true, as individuals might prefer a font that doesn’t necessarily result in the fastest reading speed. Instead, these differences may be due to individual variation in how we visually process and recognize words. As Professor Anna Kosovicheva explains, “These may reflect more fundamental visual processes. For example, when we read, we’re not just looking directly at each word. Instead, we might be looking at one word, while simultaneously trying to identify the word to the right of where we’re looking”. Current research aims to understand how individual differences in visual perception contribute to variation in the font settings that work best for readers.

Canadian Literacy Challenges and the Promise of Change

A significant number of Canadian adults have below-average reading skills, with 15% struggling with limited literacy. These literacy barriers disrupt personal and professional success. However, small adjustments in text presentation can make a huge difference. According to The Readability Consortium (2023), customizing the font and spacing of text can enhance your reading speed by an impressive 35% (The Readability Consortium, 2023). Tailored text settings help individuals to engage with written content more effectively, addressing needs they may not even realize they have.

The Goals of the Research

This innovative research project uses something called variable fonts to study how text appearance impacts reading performance. Variable fonts allow users to manipulate how text appears along a set of continuous settings. For example, instead of setting a font to “italic” or “regular”, one can change the degree of slant in a continuous way. Similarly, one can change the font weight (the degree of “boldness”), along with many other settings.  In using variable fonts, this work has three main objectives. First, the researchers want to determine which font settings influence how we read with eye-tracking technology. Eye-tracking technology monitors and records where a person is looking. It helps identify how different aspects of fonts affect reading by tracking where and how long the eyes linger on specific parts of text. This data provides insights into reading patterns. Next, the project aims to create an algorithm to identify the font settings that work best for individual readers. Lastly, the research wants to investigate transferability. They want to know whether personalized reading settings are like “training wheels,” transferable to overall reading skills, or more like “digital reading glasses,” only helping in specific contexts.

Broader Applications of the Research

This research has the potential to transform the design of digital content, educational tools, and assistive technologies. Software developers could use these findings to create adaptable reading solutions that cater to individual needs. Such interventions are especially valuable for those who face reading challenges and learning new languages.

As Dr. Kosovicheva states, “For the kinds of reading I do, finding the right font settings would help me get through my emails faster, or mark student assignments faster, which lets me do more. If I imagine being a student, it’s most useful for tasks like reading assigned texts for courses.”

Personalization in fonts has the potential to influence various domains that extend beyond education. They can influence web design, user interfaces, virtual reality systems, mobile app development, automotive displays and much more.

Try It For Yourself!

You can experiment with variable fonts today using the ‘Roboto Flex’ font demonstration below. Adjust parameters like size, weight, slant, and ascender height to suit your reading style. Happy Reading!

Experiment with Roboto Flex Here (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Flex/tester)