[Enhancement]: Open Dyslexic font for epub, and possibly UI

[NameIsKallie]

Type of Enhancement

Web Interface/Frontend

Describe the Feature/Enhancement

As someone with dyslexia, using the Open Dyslexic font drastically improves my reading ability. Adding this as a font option to the epub reader would be amazing.

Why would this be helpful?

It would help me and possibly others who have a hard time reading because of dyslexia. I currently use Kavita for reading epubs because they do support this font, but it would be nice to have this here to have one app for my epubs and audiobooks since I like to read along with the audiobooks.

Future Implementation (Screenshot)

This is how kavita's epub reader looks with the font.

Audiobookshelf Server Version

v2.13.4

Current Implementation (Screenshot)

Not necessary. The current look of the epub reader is fine. Just a font option request for the existing font selector.

[devnoname120]

Worth noting is that OpenDyslexic doesn't seem to perform better than some other popular fonts, and it actually performs worse than some of them.

See [Rello et Baeza-Yates, 2013] (n=48):

Although Arial is highly recommended in literature [2, 10, 22] and had the shortest reading time, we cannot conclude that this font type leads to better readability because we only found significant differences with respect to OpenDys It. and Arial It. However, Arial It. did lead to significant longer reading times than Helvetica, Arial, and CMU and significant longer fixation durations than most of the fonts.

The two fonts that lead to shorter fixation durations than other fonts were Courier and Helvetica. Hence the use of these fonts might help people with dyslexia to read faster. This is consistent with the recommendation of [1] to use Courier and with [22] to use sans serif fonts in the case of Helvetica. Also, Helvetica was the second most significantly preferred font by our participants after Verdana.

The fonts designed specifically for dyslexia, OpenDys and OpenDys It., did not lead to a better or worse readability. As in [21], OpenDys did not lead to a faster reading. In addition, our participants significantly preferred Verdana or Helvetica for reading than OpenDys and OpenDys It.

[NameIsKallie]

Very interesting paper. I will note from my own experience, I have noticed a significantly easier time with long reading sessions using open-dyslexic font. I think that is one area that wasn't explored much in the study. I do fine reading short periods with most fonts, but the longer I read, the hardert it becomes to focus. During long sessions I notice myself needing to re-read certain lines or words with certain fonts. Obviously everyone is different, and not one font is the best for everyone. I appreciate the article nonetheless.

[devnoname120]

@NameIsKallie Thank you for sharing your experience! It's definitely a valuable data point.

[DDriggs00]

I think that regardless of whether any one specific font has certain benefits, adding the ability to change the font used in the ereader is a good idea.