Dyslexia-friendly fonts on a website: what the research says, and how to offer one in WordPress

Last updated: 29 October 2026

Fonts made for dyslexia, like OpenDyslexic and Dyslexie, are easy to add to a website. Whether they help is another question. Here is what the published studies found, what does make text easier to read, and how to let visitors choose the font and spacing that work for them.

Short version: in the studies we found, the special letter shapes of these fonts did not make reading faster or more accurate; extra spacing did. So don't switch your whole site to a dyslexia font. Give everyone a plain sans-serif font with generous spacing, make sure your pages still work when visitors add more spacing themselves, and offer the special font as an option for the people who like it.

We make an accessibility toolbar for WordPress that includes a dyslexia-friendly font, so weigh what we say with that in mind. Every fact below links to its source, read on 29 October 2026. This is general information, not medical or legal advice.

What the studies found

OpenDyslexic describes itself as "a typeface designed against some common symptoms of dyslexia" and leaves the judgement to the reader: "If you like the way you are able to read this page, and others, then this typeface is for you!" (opendyslexic.org). Researchers have tested this kind of font against ordinary ones:

Study	Who and what	What it found
Wery and Diliberto, Annals of Dyslexia, 2017	12 elementary students with dyslexia; OpenDyslexic against Arial and Times New Roman	"no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole"; none of them "reported preferring to read material presented in that font"
Kuster and others, Annals of Dyslexia, 2018	170 children with dyslexia, then 102 with and 45 without; Dyslexie against Arial (and Times New Roman)	not read "faster or more accurately"; most children preferred Arial; the font "neither benefits nor impedes the reading process"
Marinus and others, Dyslexia, 2016	low-progress readers; Dyslexie against Arial, with normal and with matched spacing	7% more words per minute in Dyslexie than in normally spaced Arial, but with Arial spaced like Dyslexie "the difference in reading speed was no longer significant": the effect came from the spacing, "not because of its specially designed letter shapes"
Duranovic and others, Annals of Dyslexia, 2018	children with and without dyslexia; Dyslexie against other fonts, including an extra-spaced Times New Roman	"only spacing plays a role in enhancing dyslexic individuals' reading performance"

These are a handful of studies, mostly with children, and they measure speed and accuracy, not comfort. Some readers simply prefer a dyslexia font, and that is a good reason to offer it. It is not a reason to impose it on everyone.

What does help: spacing, size, alignment

Dyslexia Scotland's guide to dyslexia-friendly formats (12 September 2025) sums up the evidence the same way: "Evidence does not show a consistent reading advantage for specialised 'dyslexia fonts'. You should use them only if an individual finds them helpful." Typefaces such as OpenDyslexic "aren't necessarily better than standard ones; it's down to personal preference and suitable spacing" (Dyslexia Scotland). Its practical tips:

sans-serif fonts such as Arial, Verdana or Calibri;
"Use 1.5x line spacing";
"Increase default letter and word spacing by 30% to 35% of the font size (or customised to the reader's preference)";
text aligned left, not justified.

WCAG 2.2, the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, does not ask for any font. Its success criterion 1.4.12 Text Spacing (level AA) asks that nothing is lost or overlaps when a visitor sets:

"Line height (line spacing) to at least 1.5 times the font size";
"Spacing following paragraphs to at least 2 times the font size";
"Letter spacing (tracking) to at least 0.12 times the font size";
"Word spacing to at least 0.16 times the font size."

The W3C explains why: "People with dyslexia may increase space between lines, words, and letters to increase reading speed." It also says the criterion "does not dictate that authors must set all their content to the specified metrics, or provide a mechanism to do so". What it asks is that your layout survives when visitors do it themselves.

What this means for your website

Pick readable defaults for everyone. A plain sans-serif body font, a comfortable size, line height around 1.5 and left-aligned paragraphs. In WordPress these come from the theme: in a block theme, the site editor's styles; in a classic theme, usually the Customizer.
Let the layout breathe. Fixed-height boxes, buttons and cards that clip their text are what fail 1.4.12. Increase the spacing to the four values above (with a browser extension or your browser's developer tools) and look for text that is cut off or overlaps.
Offer the special font as a choice. Readers who like OpenDyslexic can already get it everywhere: the browser extension "OpenDyslexic for Chrome" listed 700,000 users on the Chrome Web Store. A switch on your own site helps the visitors who don't have one, on any device.

Don't set OpenDyslexic as the font of the whole site: in the studies above most readers did not prefer it, and it changes the look of your brand for everyone.

Letting visitors choose in WordPress

WordPress has no setting that lets visitors change the font or the spacing; that takes a plugin or your own code. Our free Quicksloth Accessibility Toolbar (on WordPress.org) adds a button that opens a panel with these tools, among 25:

Readable font: switches the page to the visitor's system sans-serif font.
Dyslexia-friendly font: OpenDyslexic, bundled with the plugin (about 101 KB) and served from your own site, loaded only when a visitor turns it on. Icon fonts and code keep their own font.
Line height: three steps, 1.6, 1.9 and 2.2.
Letter spacing: three steps, 0.06, 0.12 and 0.2 em; the third also adds 0.16 em of word spacing.
Text size up to 175%, and Text align left, center or right.

The choices are remembered in the visitor's browser, with no account, no cookies and no connection to any other server. You can try them in the live demo. The panel is in English for now.

An accessibility toolbar helps some visitors; it does not make a website conform to WCAG or to the law. It does not fix a layout that breaks with more spacing: our WordPress accessibility checklist covers the checks to do first.

Questions and answers

Is OpenDyslexic free to use on a website?: Yes. The project says its newest version "now uses the SIL-OFL license" and that "You can download and use OpenDyslexic for free" (opendyslexic.org). The Open Font License lets you bundle it with a website or software as long as the license travels with it and the font is not sold on its own. Serve the font file from your own site rather than from a third-party server.
Which font should my site use, then?: A plain sans-serif that your theme renders well, at a comfortable size, with generous line spacing. Dyslexia Scotland names Arial, Verdana and Calibri as examples; the studies above found no special font that beat them.
Does a dyslexia font make my site accessible?: No. WCAG asks for no particular font. A font switch is a convenience for some readers; conformance depends on your content and code, such as text that survives extra spacing (1.4.12), contrast, headings, labels and keyboard access.
What about Comic Sans?: An earlier, undated edition of the British Dyslexia Association's style guide named it next to Arial ("a plain, evenly spaced sans serif font such as Arial and Comic Sans", copy hosted by Wigan Council), and some readers like it. If you offer a choice, it is better to let visitors pick than to guess for them. In our toolbar, Comic Sans MS is the first fallback if the OpenDyslexic file cannot load.

Sources

All read on 29 October 2026.

Wery, J. J. and Diliberto, J. A. (2017), The effect of a specialized dyslexia font, OpenDyslexic, on reading rate and accuracy, Annals of Dyslexia 67(2).
Kuster, S. M., van Weerdenburg, M., Gompel, M. and Bosman, A. M. T. (2018), Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia, Annals of Dyslexia 68(1).
Marinus, E. and others (2016), A special font for people with dyslexia: does it work and, if so, why?, Dyslexia 22(3).
Duranovic, M. and others (2018), abstract on PubMed, Annals of Dyslexia 68(3).
Dyslexia Scotland, Dyslexia-friendly typed formats (12 September 2025).
W3C, Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.12: Text Spacing.
OpenDyslexic, official site.

Written with AI tools and checked by Quicksloth: quotes compared with the linked pages, toolbar values taken from the plugin's code (version 0.1.2). Found something out of date? Tell us at support@quicksloth.dev and we will correct this page.