What is the best font to use for accessibility?
Simply put, there is no best font for accessibility, but that is not to say that for any particular user there will not be a 'most accessible font', there will be; but it will not be the same font for every user.
Whereas, in the physical world of printed documents providing the most accessible font implies creating several different versions of every document; one to meet the presentation needs of each individual. On the web, with the help of style sheets, we can now provide one page capable of being presented in many different ways.
We can't predict what will be the most accessible font for any particular user - so we have to fall back on the assumption that the user knows what is best; the most accessible font, therefore, will be the one they pick themselves.
Your job as an accessible website designer is not to get in the way of the user's ability to set their own preferences - and in relation to typographical matters - that means the ability to choose a font that suits their own needs.
For the text on a website to be accessible, users should be able to do the following:
- Turn off your style sheets - so that the page adopts the default settings in the user's browser (this is another good reason not to use the deprecated font tag; presentation attributes will still be present after the user turns off the style sheet).
- Substitute their own style sheet, assuming the browser has this facility.
- Override all of the preferences set in your style sheet with their own, including font choice, text size and colours. Some of the most critical issues here are related to the unit used to set font sizes, i.e. absolute units versus relative units (explored in greater detail in section 2).
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