The Crystal New Testament, published last month, aims to make reading easier for people with dyslexia by including features informed by research from the University of Cambridge’s Engineering Design Centre.
According to the British Dyslexia Association, an estimated ten per cent of people in the UK have dyslexia, while the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity estimates the US proportion to be 20 per cent.
The director of Bibles at CUP, Bob Groser, said on Thursday: “We know that dyslexia is complex. We’re not saying that the Crystal edition will tackle every dyslexic reader’s difficulties, it’s more about continuing to push the envelope in accessibility.”
The Crystal edition includes features such as a generous text size, reduced line length, and increased space between lines.
It is also printed on opaque, cream-coloured paper which reduces text showing through the page. This helps to minimise distraction and visual stress for readers, CUP said in a statement on Thursday.
Many editions of the New Testament use a double column, but the Crystal New Testament uses single column to improve readability.
A special typeface — the Grace font2 — was designed by the typographic designers 2K/Denmark and has been used in dyslexia-friendly Bibles in the US, CUP said. The font uses curls and a slight boldness to help people distinguish similar characters, such as “m” and “n”.
These adjustments help readers to tell letters apart, CUP said, as letters can sometimes appear to float or move on the page for dyslexic people.
Mr Groser described the design process as “evolutionary”, and said: “We hope to learn more about reader experience from how this version is received that we can use to refine future versions.”
The University of Cambridge’s Engineering Design Centre is inviting those who buy the Crystal edition to take part in a survey “which will explore the experience of readers with dyslexia and other forms of difficulty in more detail”.
The survey provides readers with 12 samples of three different fonts, each with four spacing ratios, to determine which version they prefer, CUP stated.
In addition, it asks questions, such as, “To what extent common visual stress issues, such as letters blurring or merging, are experienced when reading the Crystal edition?”
The translation used is the English Standard Version, and the book is priced at £25.