Lexie Programmable
A programming font for those dyslexia (under development)
This is a programming font I developed for myself, and is based on Lexie Readable [ https://www.k-type.com/lexie-readable/ ] .
Progress
The font is only optimized for myself, and I am exploring if others would find this font useful, and/or if they can give feedback that would make this font useful to them.
Please post an Issue if you have any feedback.
UPDATE:
I have recieved a lot of great feedback here
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d49ra3/lexie_programmable_i_made_a_programming_font_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/d49gvs/lexie_programmable_i_made_a_programming_font_for/
However, due to licencing issues of Lexie Readable, I can not distribute the font to others. I am hoping to see if there is a way to purchase the rights to do this. I am also hoping to create a new dyslexic font based on Andika [ https://software.sil.org/andika/ ] whose open font licence allows for distribution. I think Andika is a fantastic candidate, and I am excited for this project, but due to other ongoing projects, I won't be able to start anytime soon.
For now, the final thing I want to say is that I encourage font designers to not only look into developing fonts for programming, but fonts for dslexics in general. Although there are several out there, none of them really worked out for me. When I was younger, I was discouraged from coding and reading, two activities I wish I could have done more (much more), and would have been able to do so if I had access to the fonts I have access to now.
My Story
I tend to have a difficult time coding because of my dyslexia; coding involves writing precise statements, and this is very hard for me with the friction I experience in reading normal fonts. I remember when I took my very first introduction to programming course, while I immensely enjoyed coding whenever my dyslexia wasn't an issue, the time spent on syntactical errors discouraged me from persuing computer science. It wasn't until 2017 when I strongly considered a career which heavily involved programming again, due to the advancements is machine learning.
I always have been a bit obsessed with information retrieval for scientific texts during my work as a biomedical researcher. Due to variations of keywords and phrasing in chem/bio, it is very difficult to query about a particular concept you have in mind. So I dreamed about search techniques that were invarient to a strict keyword or phrase; some sort of algorithm that could infer the meaning behind your query, and search through that.
In 2017, I had learned that such algorithms are being developed (word embedding models, transformer models; vector representations of words and text), and I felt immediatly that I wanted to persue NLP/Machine Learning as a new career path. After some initial self study, it was time to start learning Tensorflow/Python, but the issue of my friction with programming came up again. I had a very hard time with coding again, but I really Really wanted to learn NLP. I was determined to find a way.
I had learned about specific fonts for dsylexia, but none seemed to help me too much, so I decided to make my own. I analyzed what letter shapes would allow me to read the fastest and produced them. I spent most of my time over two months on it, and then started using it. The effect of this font on me was immense. Its hard to explain, but it felt like for the very first time in my life, I was interacting directly with the programming language.
I remember the series of decisions I made to create this font in late 2017. Should I spend the time learning how to use font software? Should I spend the time experimenting and analyzing different letter shapes? I remember a few days in, when I realized how significant of a time commitment this would be. I remember contemplating how the path to a career in machine learning is already going to be very long, and if I wanted to tack on an additional month or two on top of that.
There were several times when I decided not to do it, go back to coding in Pytorch/Tensorflow, feeling the friction, and recontemplating my decision. I eventually decided to spend the time needed for the font. It was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I almost decided not to do it.
Licencing
The base font from which this is adapted from Lexie Readable from k-type, which has it's own specifications regarding licensing