I spent some time researching options for a workhorse body font that is accessible and inclusive. In this article I share some of my findings.
An accessible, inclusive font should have a few basic qualities:
Before looking for options, I watched presentations discussing the factors influencing the design of inclusive type. I also consulted various articles and resources.
Don’t Believe the Type! (video)
Are “accessible” fonts actually as accessible as they claim? If not, what are the things we need to know when choosing a font that responds to different reader needs? This session will explore what dyslexia is, what cognitively happens when we read, and what elements of a typeface make a difference to how accessible it is, and to whom. Bruno, David, and Gareth have decades of experience between them. Bruno as a Typeface Designer, David as a Typographer, and Gareth as a UX Design/Accessibility expert. Together they spent over 3 years researching and steering the creation of BBC Reith family, the BBC’s corporate accessible typeface.
Hyperlegible: Challenging Assumptions about Legibility and Accessibility (video)
Applied Design of New York provides a behind-the-scenes look at what drove the design of Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface for people with low vision, which Fast Company named a winner in the Graphic Design category of its 2019 Innovation by Design Awards. In 2024, it was officially added to the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s permanent collection.
A Guide to Understanding What Makes a Typeface Accessible (article)
Typefaces are the foundation of accessible visual reading experiences, so choosing a performant typeface that enhances legibility and readability for people with poor vision, learning disabilities, aphasia, dyslexia or low adult literacy is of paramount importance if you want your written information to be as accessible as possible.
Designing Accessible Content: Typography, Font Styling, and Structure (article)
Best practices for accessible typography, font styling, and structure by Carrie Fisher, a digital accessibility expert and author.
I also consulted the “A11y” Slack community – a global network of nearly 8,000 accessibility experts and practitioners.
Based on this guidance, I have produced a shortlist of “free” fonts that fit my requirements for being inclusive. The research presented in Don’t Believe the Type! tells us that clear sans-serifs in the grotesque and humanist styles are favoured by readers. And, in addition to being functional, typography must also engage on an emotional level. Emotion and function must be in balance for a design to be successful.
The work done by Applied Design on Atkinson Hyperlegible gives us a benchmark against which to judge other fonts. The website for this typeface details things to consider when selecting a font for legibility, as do the articles presented above.
Applied Design also echo the need to balance style and function. They suggest this somewhat profound cascade of insights:
I am presenting two lists of fonts here. I’ve compiled my top-seven which do a good job of meeting the “hyperlegible” benchmark, and a list of others which do not meet the benchmark quite so well but are still worthy of consideration. The lists are not exhaustive nor are they in order of preference. But they should give you a flavour of what is out there.
Work Sans in particular is impressive in its breadth of
features. It is reminiscent of BBC’s Reith Sans, has character and
emotion, is variable weight, optimised for digital and print, and has a
wide range of features, such as ligatures, stylistic alternatives, small
caps, tabular figures, old-style figures, slashed zero, caps spacing,
swashes, and more (see the “sample” link). It is perhaps a little
loose, but it can be easily tightened up using a little negative letter-spacing in CSS. It fits the bill for a workhorse you
could turn to and work with again and again.
These are all freely available fonts. They all have open licenses that allow for commercial use, free of charge.
When I was training in graphic design in the 90s and early 00s, free fonts were avoided because they were almost always terrible. The landscape has radically changed in recent years and there are now many high-quality free fonts (and still lots of terrible ones, too). Although the fonts I’ve listed here are made available free-of-charge, most are produced by professional typographers or type studios, often under commission by Google. They are, therefore, not amateur or unprofessional or even strictly speaking “free”, because Google (or the Braille Institute or RNIB) has paid for them and then chosen to make them freely available for the benefit of all.
See also Accessible fonts and readability: the basics by Scope for Business.