Web readability for students with Dyslexia: Malaysian case study

Abstract

Dyslexia is a specific reading disability in word recognition, spelling and decoding. Students with Dyslexia require special adjustments to the text and text environment to be able to read better. Current studies have shown that many assistive technologies such as software application and other tools are available in aiding Dyslexia's student in reading. However, websites that support Dyslexia's student in reading are very minimal. This discourages Dyslexia's student to use the Internet. Therefore there is a need to identify user-interface requirements for web readability for students with Dyslexia. The requirements are font style, font size, font color, background color and spacing. This is in line with result from several interviews conducted among educators in Dyslexia Titiwangsa Centre. By using the user-interface requirements, the researcher developed a prototype of web readability for students with mild stage of Dyslexia using Cascade Style Sheet (CSS). The reading ability of the Dyslexia's students in Dyslexia Titiwangsa Centre was tested on the prototype. The results showed that the Dyslexia's students were able to read better and easier when using built-in user-interface requirements in the website.