Conference: Designing Tools for Accessibility

When children and teenagers move to Europe from a non-Latin-speaking country they face the need, in order to pursue their education as fairly as anyone, to learn a new language, but also its writing(s).

If textbooks are typed, most of the content produced in class (including exams) is handwritten in cursive. This results in students having to learn to read and write two alphabets simultaneously, and many can have a hard time learning to decipher and write cursive French. Over the years, professionals have observed that this difficulty creates a real barrier to success in their studies.

In this talk I will walk you through my design process (methodology, tools and tests) as I developed Arcobaleno, in collaboration with the Belgian teacher of French for non-native speakers and author of teaching methods Olivier Hecquet, to develop a cursive typography that addresses these specific challenges.

After identifying the struggles in letter-recognition encountered by these readers, I drew 288 glyphs, with various entry and exit strokes, and coded contextual alternates so the letters would automatically and smoothly connect when the font is applied in standard writing software.

Today this font is used in different learning contexts: in class and by associations for refugees. I also developed an online page where users can write a text and download it as a PDF without installation.

Understanding the typography as a tool for accessibility rather than a typeface early on in the process really put first its future context of use : in the classroom by teachers but first of all by its readers : the students, children and teens, who are learning to make sense of all these loops and bridges. This project demonstrates the relevance of approaching a very specific social issue with the methodology and toolbox of design.