Readability: Accessibility’s Quiet Partner

In this session, we explore readability—an essential yet often misunderstood aspect of inclusive design. More subjective than accessibility and harder to quantify, readability is no less important. Learn how your font choices—and particularly the way you handle those fonts—affect more than style; shaping how quickly and comfortably text can be read. 

Topics covered:

• What is readability, and how does it differ from legibility?
• The role of x-height, counter shapes, and stroke contrast in creating readable type.
• The Goldilocks zone of line length: not too long, not too short—the cognitive sweet spot for comfortable reading.
• Line spacing (leading): how to tailor it to font style, type size, line length, and reading context.
• Alignment and word spacing: how layout decisions affect rhythm, flow, and where the “extra space” goes.