BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Tangledwood
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 06:33 PM

Helen, thank you for the clue about visual migraines. I experienced a couple at work but never knew what they were. They didn't seem severe or frequent enough to warrant medical attention. At the time I associated it with the office lighting which is borne out by internet information. Another problem that retirement removed. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 09:29 AM

I have done the doctype. Is that any better?

The problem now is that <font ... > tags aren't part of HTML 4.01 Strict, which is what you've said your page is. So it hasn't made any practical difference yet. You need to figure out what kind of HTML you're actually using and make sure the DOCTYPE reflects that.

This is only going to affect a fairly small number of users - those with idiosyncratic display settings in their browsers and a browser that cares about this stuff. But getting it right shouldn't disadvantage anybody else. Unfortunately I don't have any FrontPage documentation so I don't know what it's trying to do.

I started getting visual migraines a couple of months ago (like I need another visual problem, no way!). Do a Google Image search on visual migraines for different people's artistic impressions of how visual migraines manifest. Heat haze effects is one of them.

I started getting visual migraines a couple of years ago. The effects for me are nothing like the depressive shimmer - my migraines produce the classic sparkly-edged central scotoma. And they're over in a few hours, whereas the depressive shimmer is continuous, worsening over a period of months or years. I'm sure somebody out there is getting visual migraines often enough to disrupt reading, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 05:49 AM

OOps got that wrong

Jack, thanks for your comments and for mentioning the doctype issue. I have done the doctype. Is that any better?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 04:44 AM

OK done a bit more twiddling.

Is the background colour better or not?
Is the Font colour OK?

Jack, thanks for your comments and for mentioning the . Is that any better?

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 04:02 AM

With you on the yellow there, Helen....dazzling and dominating, horrible.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: GUEST,Helen
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 07:21 PM

I have Irlen lenses for Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome. I have had them for about 10 years. the moment I found out about it and tried someone else's glasses I felt a huge sense of relief and didn't want to hand the glasses back. I immediately made an appointment with the Special Education Centre at the local Uni, was tested, found to have the SSS and was tested for the right colour for me. My colour is sort of a beige/maroon mix (but I get a tinge of purple in mine because I love purple). I have also changed the background colour on my computers at home and at work to make it more like the colour in my glasses. Without the glasses I get a shadowy haze around the words, and they jiggle about on the page. I still get the haze and jiggle with the glasses but it is very much reduced. My background colour on my computer, i.e. the "page" colour I have set for Word etc, is RGB: 239, 228, 237. As I said, it's a muted beige/maroon/mauve.

The first lens colour that the assessor told me to try was yellow. I baulked and told him I don't like yellow. He made me try it anyway, but then he said that one of the common things among SSS people is that we don't like yellow, because of the glare.

Em, high contrast between paper and print makes the print hazy and makes it jiggle for me.

As for font, I love Comic Sans, but Arial is clear. Times New Roman is a little bit more of a problem but better than some fonts.If you look at the shape of the letters in Times NR, the letters like 'a', 'e', 'o', and 's', etc are roughly circular shape, and the letters are compact, so harder to see the difference in shape. There is a lot of white space within the letters of Comic Sans, Arial and Verdana. Comic Sans also has an 'a' and a 't' like the font used when we first learned to read.

I get a muted white background on the Faldingworth site. No colour at all. I tried it in Firefox and IE. Maybe you changed it, and I'm still trawling through the thread catching up from last night.

I have trouble reading this page because the safety yellow radiates glare

Fluorescent lights are hell. I was reluctant to admit to my dyslexia and SSS when I started in my job a few years ago, but it has worked out well that I did. I was moved to a desk which has a window with neutral coloured venetian blinds and I can adjust the blinds according to the time of day so that there is never too much glare. The natural light counteracts the fluoro lights, and every second fluoro tube is turned off in that section because a few people had problems with glare from 3 sides of windows, so it is ideal for me. If they ever tell me to move from that desk I'll be kicking and screaming. Prior to that I was sitting in a corner of a big room, as far from the windows you could get, with glaring fluoro lights on all sides.

Jack Campin,

I started getting visual migraines a couple of months ago (like I need another visual problem, no way!). Do a Google Image search on visual migraines for different people's artistic impressions of how visual migraines manifest.vHeat haze effects is one of them. I read up on visual migraines on the internet and found that electrolytes, like Staminade (see my post above about that word) help to sort the visual migraines out. Worth a try. I use Staminade powder. It's cheaper than buying the made-up drinks and it has no sugar, although it does have an artificial sweetener. I get it from the supermarket.

I've been reading the thread and writing as I go, so this post might be a bit disjointed.

Thanks, heaps, for a great thread.
Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 07:05 PM

Apropos the Faldingworth site: I have my browser set (as a default) to ignore colours, fonts and backgrounds defined by pages - everything comes up in the text and background colours and in the fonts I choose. Can't most browsers do that?

BTW, the Faldingworth home page is missing a <!DOCTYPE> declaration - the effect of that is that a browser doesn't know which standard of HTML is intended. Mine is set to expect HTML 4.0 Strict by default, so all those <font ...> tags show up as errors and wouldn't be interpreted even if I did allow you to set the fonts I see (FrontPage has got it wrong, you may need to fix this by hand). Loads very fast with no other errors, though.

I once worked with a guy who had read up some user interface research that showed people made less mistakes when their screen background was snot-green. So that was what he used, all day. It made me feel queasy just looking at it across the room.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 06:34 PM

The darker blue of the clickable links works better for me with the yellow (which is fine) than the black (dark gray?). How does the darker blue work for the ones with dyslexia?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 06:27 PM

The yellow is far better....but that blue, it's just...too....too...blue!

My eyes keep wandering from the text to the colour, then backing away from it..

"A Pain in the Eyes"....LOL   I like that!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 05:33 PM

The 'read regular' may be the font you mean Jack - I always use Verdana myself - and I thought it was because I just liked it :)

Yes, Read Regular was it. When I looked, it was hard to see how to get it any price.

I have not-too-great vision, probably typical of somebody aged 60 who's shortsighted and has done a heck of a lot of reading. So, I did some experiments with the same text printed in different fonts and found that what worked best for me was Palatino for ordinary text (research papers, in my case) and Comic Sans for song lyrics - the latter suggested by a local folkie, I'd never have thought of it. Is Comic Sans generally acceptable for dyslexics?

How does Gill Sans do? Is it too symmetrical?

I don't have dyslexia but I have had a few episodes of severe depression, which have always been heralded by a long period of wobbly vision, like seeing through a close-up heat haze, with a sensation like tremors in my eyeballs. An immediate effect of the antidepressants I was on (trazodone, venlafaxine) was that my vision suddenly went steady, things didn't swim around and shimmer any more. The effect was so striking it made me wonder if low-dose antidepressants might fix some dyslexia syndromes in the absence of depression.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 04:03 PM

I am looking at technical support to get a compromise and understand further the technical issues involved with different PC's and monitors and of course you dyslexics :-) You are a pain in the eyes :-)
Only kidding :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:59 PM

It takes a bit more effort for me to focus my eyes on the lighter blue text than it would be for a somewhat darker blue, but it's readable for me and doesn't give me a headache.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:39 PM

On edown 2 to go :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:39 PM

Cats
I know schools like comic sans, which might make a lot of sense. I will try that. Bold is not an option I use. I increase the font size to 14 point or above.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:36 PM

It's working for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Cats
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:34 PM

Best font is Comic Sans size 12 or above and not bolded. Everyone will need a different colour background as it is prescriptive and singular. Best colours generally tend to be pale blue, pale lilac, wheat yellow, pale green or pale pink. And in answer to an earlier post, my school has Dyslexia Friendly School Status, we were the first school in Cornwall to have Dyslexia written into a Statement of Special Educational Needs [16 years ago] and the first school in Cornwall to have students wearing presciption tinted lenses. And, at one point I used to carry my overlays testing kit with me to festivals as so many folkies had asked about getting their children tested and schools did not have the expertise to do it and I did. Any help I can give re DFS school status please pm me.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:23 PM

Is that any better?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:10 PM

That's better, although the blue will always be a problem, unless it fades even more...but the yellow's not going "KAPOW!" anymore..so I don't have to screw my eyes up to protect them from the glare..

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:09 PM

The way it is right now (sort of whitish background and blue letters) is fine on both of my machines.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:08 PM

The peachy yellow color showed up on my Toshiba, but when I checked it on the Mac, it was a sort of weird safety yellow.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 03:05 PM

Yes, that's me, and I'm spending the evening with my husband. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:54 PM

LOL I am getting obsessive about this now :-)

Try now

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:50 PM

Nope, it's still too bright...and BLUE!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:47 PM

If that is Carol, then what you doing tonight darling :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:45 PM

Changed it agin any luck

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:44 PM

Getting rid of all fluorescent lights would also help. And school, last time I was there, was filled with 'em.

Horrible, horrible light, way too bright, can't concentrate in it, just want to get away from it...

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:42 PM

Oh...er...Peachy yellow?

Am I looking at the same page?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:42 PM

Still too bright, Villan...

Carol's are good, all of them, no problems at all, soft and gentle, easy to read...

Btw, is that you, Carol, in the photo?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:39 PM

That sort of peachy yellow is too color saturated for me. I think that's the problem with some of the other colors. Color saturation is too busy for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:37 PM

I have made a change. Please try again.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:35 PM

Try this one and I'll see how it works for me...

CCFFFF

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:32 PM

That wasn't very light blue for me. It was a little on the dark side. Like a light medium or dark light. A lighter blue might work ok. I'll try to find one that works for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:29 PM

Its very interesting Dark Blue background is a no no for Em and Lizzie.

Carol I had my background very light blue with black teext originally, but you had problems with that. Hoever white background and black text seems to work for you.

I am going to try other options and when all 3 agree, we may well have a product we can sell :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:28 PM

The kinds of color combinations in these pages work ok for me (there is one with dark background and light letters, but that page is mostly about the picture and not the words)...

http://www.geocities.com/squeezemusette/MoreMole.html

http://www.geocities.com/squeezemusette/index.html

http://www.geocities.com/squeezemusette/Links.html

Ignore the bright red of the clicked links. I don't know how that happened. That's not the way I set it up, and I'm going to have to change it.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:22 PM

The white background with black letters works for me. A very, very light gray with dark gray letters would work also, as would a very, very light blue or green or pink (or any other extremely light color) with black or very dark colored letters.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 02:21 PM

It's the royal blue, Villan.

It's the ONLY colour on my page which makes me feel weird...and it's only on there because it's the one colour I cannot change to the one I want, as it's part of the page format, put on there by whoever invented that layout.

I've got other 'blues' on there, but they're OK, although it took me a while to realise that royal blue was the problem...All the other colours work for me, but ONLY because they're on a black background.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:55 PM

A tiny bit better, but still not too good.

My head is registering the colours far more than the words...and when I click off the page, all I can see in my head are the colours....can't remember what was written on the page...

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:47 PM

OK Carol & Lizzie and Em this is very interesting. I will do a change that is the opposite to that and see what you see then.

Try again and see how you feel about that.

I appreciate your feedback.

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:42 PM

It makes my head spin, especially the yellow.

My myspace page is black backgrounded....and the yellow's OK on that, so are all the other colours...(I love colours)....but not a blue background...

It makes my head 'swim'....

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:38 PM

"I have just changed my frontpage of my website as an experiment. Can you try it again and see if that is any better please. If not why not?"

It's dazzling and it makes me want to turn the screen off straight away as it hurts my eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:22 PM

I'm trying to figure out why the darker background with the white letters is not as good as a bright background with dark letters, and I don't know if I can explain it. I always have problems with dark backgrounds. They tend to make me headachy.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:18 PM

On my monitor, the color is the same as the blue color that surrounds letters when they are highlighted, and the text is black. I would describe it as being at the dark end of light blue, or the light end of medium blue.

I just now checked it again, and I see it's a darker blue with white letters. That's a little bit easier to read, but not great.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 01:12 PM

I have just changed my frontpage of my website as an experiment. Can you try it again and see if that is any better please. If not why not?

http://www.faldingworthlive.co.uk/

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 12:50 PM

The reason I use light blue background is to take the brightness off the screen and give a softpastel effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 12:48 PM

Thats starnge as it is a light blue

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 12:38 PM

It's probably the combination of my astigmatism and my early stage cataracts and not the astigmatism alone. The blue is too dark. I'm using a two or three year old iMac with a 21 inch screen. I don't know what the resolution is, but it's very good. I have no trouble reading this thread in the Mudcat, even when the text size is the same as in the Faldingworth Live site, because there is very good contrast between the text and the background. But the background in the Faldingworth Live website is too dark and there's not enough contrast. It almost gives me a headache when I try to read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 12:32 PM

The other question Carol is

What resolution do you have for your monitor and how old is your computer and monitor, as this may provide a clue. As I say, it looks OK on my monitor.

Also is it the size of text possibly?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 12:26 PM

Ah OK Carol
I have astigmatism and it seems OK to me. Is it the background colour or the text colour?
Les

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 12:18 PM

I don't have dyslexia, but I do have severe astigmatism and early stage cataracts, and the color combination in the Faldingworth Live website makes it extremely difficult for me to read, even when I wear my glasses that are supposed to correct my astigmatism.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that help people with Dyslexia
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Oct 09 - 10:31 AM

Reading with phonetic writing systems is based in part on word shape recognition and part on context - as someone who visualizes words (you may see me exercising 'invisible' finger writing sometimes when struggling to recall one) I find this system suits me best
But - and this is a follow on from fonts - the amount of letter-spacing in text can also affect legibility

Just a thought - this is an interesting thread

Sorry I can't help you Spleen Cringe with any answers with regard to problems with a school, it's been a long time since I was in the system.