Guest Blog - Enhancing Accessibility

The Importance of Dyslexic-Friendly Fonts

After my Blogs on the general Management of Data Analytics Projects I would like to add another angle to your Business Analytics Project.

How to cater for users with Disabilities, its not a topic we usually think about when designing reporting, but its an important one for your users. My daughter has dyslexia. We're lucky; it was diagnosed early, and working with her schools, we've ensured that it does not affect her learning ability. She now thrives, and this is lovely to see. We deal with this in varying ways: she uses her iPad and MacBook to make notes (her handwriting can be poor), and when reading on her Kindle, we use a Dyslexic font, which was a game changer in reading. And this brought me to an important point for your reporting environment. 

Around 10% of the global population is affected by dyslexia.

Statistically, there are 3 men for every 1 woman diagnosed with dyslexia, but women tend to under report or better compensate for their difficulties. This in itself means that there are potentially many more millions who are affected and simply "get by". 

In the realm of data analytics, accessibility should be at the forefront of design—not only does it ensure inclusivity, but it also empowers all users to engage fully with the data. 

If at least 10% of your users could be affected, a significant number of your workforce could be at a disadvantage, potentially unable to interpret the data they're presented with ease. 

Traditional fonts often exacerbate these challenges, making it difficult for individuals with dyslexia to decode text efficiently. Dyslexic-friendly fonts are designed to mitigate these issues by enhancing letter distinction and optimising spacing.

By incorporating a dyslexic font into Pyramid Analytics, we can create an environment that supports all users, fostering confidence and a positive relationship with data analysis.

Here's how you might support that 10% of your organisation when it comes to enabling better consumption of analytics. 

Step One: Add OpenDyslexic to your Web-Browser, use Edge, and the Web Version. 

This is not perfect and is not the finished solution. If you are dyslexic and want most of the data within Pyramid to show in a Dyslexic-friendly font, then:

1. Use Edge. From what I've found, the extensions in Edge work better for accessibility tools. 
2. Download the Hyperbird extension. The link here is here. There are free and paid-for versions. I used the free version during my tests and it worked great. 
3. Enable it. 

What does it do? It ensures that the Measures and Dimensions panels appear in the OpenDyslexic font. This might be useful for those who use self-service. 

What does it not do? It doesn't work on the Drop Zones, Formatting Panels, or Ribbon. The visuals will adopt the font as dictated by the font from the Formatting Panel,or the Design Theme. 

Things to note: I've found that the Chrome extensions appear to be great options for general websites but are ineffective for Pyramid. 

Step Two: Setting Up a Dyslexic-Friendly Font in Pyramid Analytics.

The above is half the story. It allows professional and Analyst Users to use a dyslexia-friendly font when building new content. It doesn't change the font of the visual, though, so it's only half the solution.

To fix this, you can add a custom font to your Pyramid Analytics environment! 

We're using OpenDyslexic, a free-to-use font that can be found here. The standard fonts are downloadable, but you'll want the Woff2 and Woff files, so use the links below. Thanks to OpenDyslexic for creating the font and making it available for free use. Feel free to make a donation to the creator, Abbie Gonzalez, here!

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Download these fonts from here, which you'll use below. 
2. Go to the "Admin Console". 
3. Click "Design".
4. Click "Custom Fonts".
5. Click "Add Custom Font". 
6. Enter the following details as your Custom Font, per the image below.
   1. Caption: Open-Dyslexic
   2. Font Family Name: Open-Dyslexic
   3. Fallback Font Style: Sans Serif
7. Upload the woff2 and woff files, as included above, for:
   1. Normal
   2. Bold
   3. Italic
   4. Bold-Italic
8. Note that the Bold and Bold Italic don't look any different from their Normal and Italic counterparts in the Preview. 
9. If you have associated tenants, then ensure to complete these sections also.
10. Apply. 

This is what the Custom Font settings will look like. 

That's it! You now have a custom font that your Professional and Analyst Users can use to build dyslexia-friendly solutions.  

Step Three: Create and use Theme Designs that include the new font.

If you wish to roll out dyslexia-friendly themes, you can create them as you would normally. Alternatively, at Hopton Analytics, we've created enhanced Themes based upon standard pre-existing ones that include dyslexia-friendly fonts.

You can download them here. 

That's it! What did we miss? What could we have said better?

What do you think we missed? We're planning on working on a series of colour-blind-friendly themes, too. But in the meantime, is there anything else we should or could have suggested above?

Do you have any ideas of anything else you'd like to see?

We'd love to hear from you. 

We hope you find the above useful from all of us at Hopton Analytics.