> The only people to measure the relationship between reading
>performance and colour background is TintaVision. Peter Irons
Although I recognise the importance of the work of Tintavision I can't let a
myth become established.
There is a considerable research literature dealing with the relationship
between ease of reading and background colour, and some of it was carried
out many years ago. For example, the work of the Road Research Laboratory
resulted in the characteristic signage we see everytime we use a UK
motorway.
Work in a number of research labs in the 1970's investigated the
relationship between font, layout and background colour for teletext text.
In 1991, Helen Irlen, in her book, Reading by the Colors, states that 'Once
people work with the overlays , they can see changes for themselves.
Typically, what they find is that it makes reading a lot easier. They see
that if they don't use the overlay, they have a harder time reading [or they
just don't want to read], because it's too much work, they make too many
errors, and reading is too slow.' page 141
I'm only drawing on work that I know of without undertaking any research. I
suspect that the literature of human factors engineering contains many
examples.
I do agree with Peter on the importance of spacing. If you have a print
department ask them to increase the spacing between words by a kern. When I
worked with a graphic designer on designing a special needs handbook he
selected this design feature, and also choose to use the typeface New York
Times Classic. Together they resulted in a real improvement in readability
for both visually impaired and dyslexic students.
David Grant
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