Twitter’s new font and Last of Us 2: an accessibility lesson to be learned
By: Anna Mészáros
Tags: Typography, UX, Accessibility, Ts, UI

Twitter’s new font and Last of Us 2: an accessibility lesson to be learned

One hot discussion on Twitter these days (especially in the design/tech parts of it) is Twitter itself. All the buzz is about Twitter’s new look. The update includes:

New font — Chirp;

— Chirp; Higher contrast (new high contrast/less blue colours, as well as high contrast buttons);

(new high contrast/less blue colours, as well as high contrast buttons); Clearing up visual clutter (some grey backgrounds, dividers, etc).

As is usual with all things new, some love it, some hate it.

But those less happy with the new update have raised very valid and important concerns about who it prioritizes vs. who it excludes.

Accessibility for all… or is it?

An important aspect of the new update is that it’s presented as not just a visual facelift, but an accessibility improvement.

Is it, though? Let’s take a deeper look.

New font

The new font, Chirp, was introduced back in January, but has only been used as a part of the larger Twitter brand until now (in promotional materials, etc). This week it finally reached everyone’s screens in-product.

One great thing about Chirp is that it seems to be more readable for some folks with dyslexia , which is definitely an accessibility win.

However, not everyone with dyslexia finds the new font easy to read. This might be due to its unbalanced kerning across platforms that makes the letters seem ‘glued’, as well as the lack of ClearType support which makes the rendering of the font look even worse for Windows users (leading some to speculate that this new change might have only been tested on MacOS/iOS).

Apart from issues it creates for dyslexic users, those regularly suffering from migraines have shared that the font can make them physically unwell, triggering migraines, vertigo, or a feeling of seasickness when scrolling the TL.

Whether this problem is also caused by issues with kerning/lack of ClearType support or by the composition of the font itself remains unclear (and it’s not a question I’m qualified to answer, so I’ll leave a deeper investigation to typographers).

High contrast

Sufficient contrast is one of the requirements of the Web Contents Accessibility Guidelines, so one would presume that the more contrast between the foreground vs. the background, the better.

However, the contrast can be too high in some cases. People with dyslexia have shown to be able to read faster when color pairs have lower contrasts, plus high contrast is known to hurt people with photosensitivity & chronic pain (I can attest to that myself as someone who is suffering from a combination of photosensitivity and migraines).

There is a system-wide high contrast mode available for both Windows and MacOS, but it would be strange if it would be forced on all users by default, with no alternative, as it clearly doesn’t work for everyone. It is equally as strange for a large social media platform like Twitter to do it. Just like with an operating system, users can be expected to spend a large amount of time on the platform, so staring at something that triggers your photosensitivity or chronic pain is less than ideal.

High contrast mode in Windows 10