With a few tweaks (monospaced variant), it could make a great coding font.
Coding fonts have essentially the same goal: make similar looking characters different: 1liI|, 0O, etc... Code naturally strains our visual acuity: we want to see as much as possible, it means that we may use a smaller font size than we would find comfortable reading text with. Single letter, punctuation, etc... can be really important, in regular text, you can understand even if you can't read all the characters. So a hyperlegible font can help coders, even those with good vision, and many coding fonts already have "hyperlegible" features.
I made my best attempt at this. I made custom Iosevka[1] builds that use the letter shapes from this font. I call it Hypersevka, and the build plans are available at [2].
Unless you're on a Mac, in which case just use Menlo, which is already installed. Menlo and DejaVu Sans Mono are both descendants of Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, and are nearly identical. (And where they differ, Menlo is superior IMHO.)
Indeed, that's what I thought too when I read about the letter distinction. The reverse slash on the 0 seems a little odd, but otherwise this looks like a proportional version of Consolas.
No font should lack crossbars on the capital "i." That's just straight-up dumb. Nice to see that the font in question doesn't suffer from that mistake.
Failure to distinguish O from 0 ranks pretty high on the "don't" list as well.
What OP was saying was a few tweaks could make a monospace variant, which would be a nice programming font. I don't think a monospace variant is available right now.
This one is good for specific people, not everyone. I can't use it because I find it overly rounded with tics.
An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is on the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont.
Increased legibility does NOT mean "flow". Just because each character is more "distinct" does not mean that the whole word is able to be processed with ease. Important to evaluate them in body text.
Also, one's cultural background absolutely affects which fonts are preferred. If you grew up with German blackletter writing, you're not necessarily going to like or appreciate a sans-serif font. In Germany's case, the change from blackletter to latin shapes happened fairly recently (WW2). It's happening now again, Kazakhstan has decided to stop using cyrillic and change to latin characters.
Personally, I rather liked the Atkinson Hyperlegible as well, though I found the "bgrpq" characters too similar in shape regardless, but maybe that's a criticism of the alphabet itself.
Regardless, a lot of the time I find myself using whatever is popular (e.g. Open Sans for web development) or something like Liberation Mono for writing code (though the rest of the Liberation fonts are great alternatives to Microsoft fonts, for example, when using LibreOffice).
Which population though? There are differences in age groups. People who grew up only with print won't lean toward a sans. People who grew up only with screens will lean toward sans, etc.
If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term familiarity and exposure.
I don't have a problem with providing what people are comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate to better. It's subjective.
Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay a licensing fee for usage.
There's something that feels... off about this font. The horizontal rhythm is out of whack here. I don't know what it is, I'm not a font designer, and the last time I looked into details of that was 20 years ago. Bad hinting? I don't know.
Yep, and I truly believe that they've made something great.
But the onus is on them to provide evidence that they did so.
Otherwise, I can stand up and say: "this font makes reading slower and causes more mistakes" and it's a pissing contest between me and them rather than a matter than can be settled.
Why do content creators need to do this? Particularly if they are experts and live off the trust in their experience. I am very happy if someone publishes something and states there goals an claims, so someone else can verify them independently. If it is not working they would risk reputation.
If a few publisher's really check accessibility against relevant end users and verify that this works it is much better, than any kind of scores that often overlook important usability/accessibility issues.
a11y Checkers are OK like any linter but I think we should not overdo this. That something has a higher score does not translate to better overall a11y.
Although the font did really try to nail its goal, I think Iosevka really nailed it.
On top of that, somebody took some of what Atkinson did with their font, and applied it to Iosevka, using its insanely powerful ability to be customized wildly, to produce http://thedarnedestthing.com/iosevka%20hyperlegible
It's rather awful contrast, with the color choice making it worse, yet I can read it at 100% zoom when I would otherwise be unable to with any other font choice.
Off-topic, but I think this might be the first time I've loaded a url including `%20` and had it actually render in my address bar as a space, rather than the percent-code. Is this something new in Firefox?
An aside: Why is it that most posts about a new product or project some people have put together is usually greeted with skepticism and negativity in HN comments? What is that all about? It is a pattern Ive continuously seen and it seems like only the true home runs receive any kind of praise.
Most replies are either about lack of evidence or someone’s alternative preference. I see that latter one a good deal.
- The comment structure favors the 'middlebrow contrarian' style of response. This phenomenon is particularly acute on Reddit but on here it's a more understated process that's proportional to HN's design differences to the former.
- Insecurity. Criticism is the most acute and well researched on here with child prodigies, more so than any other topic. Since people here get their sense of identity from their self-perception of intelligence, knowledge, and capacity to build certain things, there are many vulnerability points.
- Wide, industry ranging experience with bullshit technology claims for most users.
- Class and ethnographic differences. Criticism will vary depending on whether the product in question is inherently appealing to adult high-income nerds, no matter its overall utility
It is not just when there is a post about a new product or project. More broadly for ANY post here, the top comment and most comments will generally claim the opposite of what the original post presents is true (or some variation of that).
I would say mainly it is just the need for some people to feel good about themselves that they know better, or to try to show that they are smarter than the author of the post (so that again, they can feel better about themselves).
Don't take the comments too seriously. A lot of people think they are smarter than they actually are.
And next time notice, whatever the post is, when you click to view the comments expect the top one to have a contrarian view.
EDIT: As an example, as of right now, this post is the top post on HN. The second top post on HN?
Top Comment:
"Really bad advice! Hard work does not pay"
-
Upon further thought, looking at the bright side (less cynical), I guess this does help give a more balanced view of the topic as you get to quickly see both sides of a story. But it's still kind of funny that this consistently happens.
Because you are the easiest person to lie to, yourself. Just because you work in a field doesn't mean your assumptions are valid. The more people (or you yourself) consider you an expert in something, the more you should test your assumptions through studies etc. If you don't, then claiming you made a thing "for X" without any proof that X benefits from that means you've almost certainly lied to yourself, convinced yourself that lie was true, and are now perpetuating that lie by putting it on the internet. Especially when you do things based on your own experience, it's incredibly easy to forget that there are almost infinitely more people who are different and have different needs and experiences.
And of course, your things can be just fine, but without proof of that, claiming that they are just tells people you have no idea whether what you did was actually worth anything, and that undermines your effort.
The thing you made MIGHT actually be great! But it might also only be great for a super select few hyper-focussed people that you happened to ask for help (or not even, you might have purely relied on "your own past experiences"!), and be terrible in general.
Make tiny claims centered around tiny groups (e.g. "I/my customers needed something better so I made this"), not a problem. Make big claims involving "everyone" (e.g. "we made a typeface that improves legibility")? Back them up with proof. Show the studies where you've pitched it against a wide set of other typefaces, and have people of all visual impairment levels perform (also scientificially justified for this purpose) tasks that hinge on legibility.
(Because winning awards may be nice, but doesn't tell us anything. It just says "other people already liked this". It doesn't say anything about whether the thing you made is actually good)
>Why is it that most posts about a new product or project some people have put together is usually greeted with skepticism and negativity
Because most posts about a new product or project tend to make extravagant claims without anything to back it up. "The best", "the fastest", "the smallest", "the most legible", etc.
Because most of the time, the original post has enumerated all of the good things. There’s no reason to reiterate the points made in the post in the comments, and so the comments add an opposite view.
There is a healthy amount of skepticism that is required to produce good for the society. It can be adjusted based on supply/demand of such commodity or service. But, by large, skepticism is good. As a creator myself, it is important to equip yourself with the right mentality. I would never blame everyone else for being skeptical. After all, most people mean good and there is often a solid reason they're spending time writing about it.
>Why is it that most posts about a new product or project some people have put together is usually greeted with skepticism and negativity in HN comments? What is that all about?
It makes perfect sense why these things are greeted with skepticism. Because Most things in the world don't succeed. Most things fail. Thus when you see things treated with negativity and skepticism that is MORE likely to be inline with the actual reality. Thus if HN is actually more negative then normal, then that means HN users have a more realistic view of reality.
>Most replies are either about lack of evidence or someone’s alternative preference. I see that latter one a good deal.
Why is the latter a good deal if it isn't true? If 99.999% of the world doesn't have this alternative preference it's biased to even bring it up. There's no need to be personally insulting but if you think something is genuinely bad then i think it's perfectly ok to just say what you think.
When someone asks for praise, or when someone asks for positivity in a way they are by probability more likely to be asking for fake opinions and white lies. I don't come to HN for that kind of thing. But I will say that Dang (the moderator) loves this kind thing; and the moderation culture he promotes is more inline with your attitude. If you see a negative post, you can flag it, and he will take a side.
It does feel like sometimes we go beyond "healthy skepticism", and assume bad intent. I think there is good intent here. Perhaps their work is coming from more of a liberal arts angle, than an engineering angle.
probably the same reason new JS frameworks get a lot of criticism. adding another one expands an already daunting array of choices to make, most often without a clear benefit, as seems to be the case here.
I'm uncomfortable with people publishing work like this without studies to back up whether they work for their intended audience. I'm sure the Braille Institute is expert in needs of low vision readers. And the design certainly looks promising. But AFAICT no one has studied whether this font is actually more readable. https://www.maxkohler.com/notes/2021-02-16-atkinson-hyperrea...
The mess with the popular-but-not-effective OpenDyslexic isn't good for anyone except publishers wanting to tick off an "accessibility" checkbox. (Thinking particularly of the library e-reader Axis360 which includes only two fonts; a bad regular font and a "dyslexia font". Neither are particularly readable IMHO.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629233/
To be fair, most studies on fonts, at least as they relate to reading speed, have shown that there's much more cultural variation than we realize. Different line spacing, serifs vs sans serifs, font weights, etc can all affect reading speed positively or negatively based on age of the reader or cultural background.
It turns out that the fastest fonts to read in are the ones people have practiced using the most.
Given this, perhaps a more useful metric would be the maximum reading speeds for each font. This could give us something of an idea of what is possible given sufficient proficiency.
Fonts like Atkinson Hyperlegible are very well designed around some simple but well accepted principles yet, to most people without a designer's eye, it looks like any other sans serif font
---
PS if you wanna keep up with the latest in font readability research, you should check out the Readability Consortium:
I work in this area and it's true that OD hasn't fared well in various studies, but there are some people who swear by it. When it comes to matters of cognition and perception, it's hard to say what does or does not actually make a difference for people, and what evidence should be accepted.
After enough people asked for an OD option in my browser extension (which is used heavily in the dyslexia, ADHD, and vision impaired communities, as well as by other readers), we decided to offer it. I know the science behind it is not stunning, but who am I to tell people that the thing they think helps them read does not actually help them read? Even if they read more slowly with OD than without (something I'm not sure is true for people who choose to use OD), it's possible that one might enjoy reading more with OD even if it doesn't improve reading speed.
I wholeheartedly agree with your point about companies wanting to check the box on accessibility by offering OD, and it's unfortunate more companies don't do more.
This implies there is a study showing the open dyslexic font is actually not good? I can't say that would shock me, but it is surprising that they wouldn't have done some studies to justify the claims.
Edit: the second link wasn't loading for me, so now I see the study. Bad phone internet... :( Again, still surprised they didn't have the counter study.
> Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole.
The answer to the question "Was there any scientific data or studies used in the design?", which begins
"The design comes from the tradition of type design. It’s not really rocket science... " does little to inspire confidence.
As a dyslexic the mechanism for OpenDyslexic always seemed a little off for me. How does a differently shaped font help adjust for a difference in cognition?
However in this case it would seem like focusing on ensuring that the letters can be distingushed with poor vision has a more direct mechanism? - though it may be that other fonts are better
>"How does a differently shaped font help adjust for a difference in cognition?"
AIUI for some people with cognitive difficulties when using text they find orientation of glyphs (which form letter characters) to be difficult to discern, and similarities across glyphs to be confusing. Thus, if glyphs are more differentiated from one another, and if they have a non- rotationally-symmetrical shape, then letters can be easier to comprehend.
I'm curious whether fonts like Dyslexie mighty bed better for those learning to read. Children learning to read often confuse letters, b/d/p/q for example. I can see ways it could both help and hinder.
This is a tension in the field of dyslexia/reading. Most academics in the US believe that dyslexia is phonological, not visual. If this is true, then visual supports like OD would not help dyslexic readers.
Many practitioners (and researchers outside the US) have a different view, which is that there are different strains of dyslexia, and some strains are more visual than others. I've talked with SPED teachers who laughed when they heard that researchers think dyslexia is phonological, not visual.
My own belief, based on years of working in the field, is that there is a significant portion of the dyslexia population who can benefit from visual changes to text presentation. This may be a direct symptom of their dyslexia, or it may be an indirect effect of (1) having dyslexia and struggling with reading, which leads to (2) not reading as much and having less-developed pathways related to the visual aspects of reading.
But given how dyslexia is defined as a residual category (roughly: a person who has a low reading level, not caused by visual impairment or deficits in general intellectual ability), it seems highly unlikely that no people with dyslexia have any visual aspects to their condition. There may be some, or even most, for whom the condition is phonological. But reading is visual in nature, so it would be very surprising if the group of people who struggle with it didn't happen to include anyone whose difficulties are visual in nature.
Of course, one can define dyslexia more narrowly (and some do), but schools typically don't. So if a broad range of kids are diagnosed as "dyslexic" in school, then it doesn't make sense for experts to proclaim "dyslexia is never visual, and people who say otherwise are wrong!".
My experience is based on launching a speed-reading tool (on HN, of course! [1]) that ended up becoming popular in the dyslexia and ADHD communities. It is a tool that is visual in nature, and I have gotten tons of emails from people with dyslexia who describe it as life changing. Some experts believe in what we're doing, but others are completely opposed to it. The dogmatism among certain experts conflicts with what I hear from people IRL, some of whom I have literally seen brought to tears by how effective our tools are. Even if what these people have is not "dyslexia" as defined by some people, they struggle with reading and are told they are dyslexic.
Readit News
Coding fonts have essentially the same goal: make similar looking characters different: 1liI|, 0O, etc... Code naturally strains our visual acuity: we want to see as much as possible, it means that we may use a smaller font size than we would find comfortable reading text with. Single letter, punctuation, etc... can be really important, in regular text, you can understand even if you can't read all the characters. So a hyperlegible font can help coders, even those with good vision, and many coding fonts already have "hyperlegible" features.
[1] https://typeof.net/Iosevka/ [2] https://github.com/jdknezek/Iosevka/blob/jdk/private-build-p...
[1] https://dejavu-fonts.github.io/
(examples in PDF: http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/samples/DejaVuSansMono.pdf)
Failure to distinguish O from 0 ranks pretty high on the "don't" list as well.
However: https://github.com/googlefonts/atkinson-hyperlegible
This one is good for specific people, not everyone. I can't use it because I find it overly rounded with tics.
An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is on the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont.
Increased legibility does NOT mean "flow". Just because each character is more "distinct" does not mean that the whole word is able to be processed with ease. Important to evaluate them in body text.
Also, one's cultural background absolutely affects which fonts are preferred. If you grew up with German blackletter writing, you're not necessarily going to like or appreciate a sans-serif font. In Germany's case, the change from blackletter to latin shapes happened fairly recently (WW2). It's happening now again, Kazakhstan has decided to stop using cyrillic and change to latin characters.
Here's a quick example that a DuckDuckGo search turned up: https://catalog.monotype.com/font/bitstream/tiresias/screenf...
Personally, I rather liked the Atkinson Hyperlegible as well, though I found the "bgrpq" characters too similar in shape regardless, but maybe that's a criticism of the alphabet itself.
Regardless, a lot of the time I find myself using whatever is popular (e.g. Open Sans for web development) or something like Liberation Mono for writing code (though the rest of the Liberation fonts are great alternatives to Microsoft fonts, for example, when using LibreOffice).
Open Sans: https://www.opensans.com/
Liberation fonts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
Yes but you can survey a fraction of a population and make strong statistical claims such as, “most people found so and so font more readable”.
If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term familiarity and exposure.
I don't have a problem with providing what people are comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate to better. It's subjective.
Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay a licensing fee for usage.
Don't tell me "better", tell me "Scored an 8.6 on legibility in the standard font assessment test".
But the onus is on them to provide evidence that they did so.
Otherwise, I can stand up and say: "this font makes reading slower and causes more mistakes" and it's a pissing contest between me and them rather than a matter than can be settled.
If a few publisher's really check accessibility against relevant end users and verify that this works it is much better, than any kind of scores that often overlook important usability/accessibility issues.
a11y Checkers are OK like any linter but I think we should not overdo this. That something has a higher score does not translate to better overall a11y.
Atkinson Hyperlegible – a font by the Braille Institute designed for legibility - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28010540 - July 2021 (1 comment)
Atkinson Hyperlegible Font - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26011945 - Feb 2021 (86 comments)
Atkinson Hyperlegible Font - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25154417 - Nov 2020 (10 comments)
Atkinson Hyperlegible Font - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24853550 - Oct 2020 (3 comments)
A Free Hyperlegible Typeface from the Braille Institute - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24791358 - Oct 2020 (4 comments)
On top of that, somebody took some of what Atkinson did with their font, and applied it to Iosevka, using its insanely powerful ability to be customized wildly, to produce http://thedarnedestthing.com/iosevka%20hyperlegible
You can find Iosevka here -> https://typeof.net/Iosevka/
using a tiny 11px grey colour font, the body text is borderline while the navigation text is almost transparent.
It's rather awful contrast, with the color choice making it worse, yet I can read it at 100% zoom when I would otherwise be unable to with any other font choice.
Most replies are either about lack of evidence or someone’s alternative preference. I see that latter one a good deal.
- Insecurity. Criticism is the most acute and well researched on here with child prodigies, more so than any other topic. Since people here get their sense of identity from their self-perception of intelligence, knowledge, and capacity to build certain things, there are many vulnerability points.
- Wide, industry ranging experience with bullshit technology claims for most users.
- Class and ethnographic differences. Criticism will vary depending on whether the product in question is inherently appealing to adult high-income nerds, no matter its overall utility
I would say mainly it is just the need for some people to feel good about themselves that they know better, or to try to show that they are smarter than the author of the post (so that again, they can feel better about themselves).
Don't take the comments too seriously. A lot of people think they are smarter than they actually are.
And next time notice, whatever the post is, when you click to view the comments expect the top one to have a contrarian view.
EDIT: As an example, as of right now, this post is the top post on HN. The second top post on HN?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32800869
Title: "Build Your Career on Dirty Work"
Top Comment: "Really bad advice! Hard work does not pay"
-
Upon further thought, looking at the bright side (less cynical), I guess this does help give a more balanced view of the topic as you get to quickly see both sides of a story. But it's still kind of funny that this consistently happens.
And of course, your things can be just fine, but without proof of that, claiming that they are just tells people you have no idea whether what you did was actually worth anything, and that undermines your effort.
The thing you made MIGHT actually be great! But it might also only be great for a super select few hyper-focussed people that you happened to ask for help (or not even, you might have purely relied on "your own past experiences"!), and be terrible in general.
Make tiny claims centered around tiny groups (e.g. "I/my customers needed something better so I made this"), not a problem. Make big claims involving "everyone" (e.g. "we made a typeface that improves legibility")? Back them up with proof. Show the studies where you've pitched it against a wide set of other typefaces, and have people of all visual impairment levels perform (also scientificially justified for this purpose) tasks that hinge on legibility.
(Because winning awards may be nice, but doesn't tell us anything. It just says "other people already liked this". It doesn't say anything about whether the thing you made is actually good)
Because most posts about a new product or project tend to make extravagant claims without anything to back it up. "The best", "the fastest", "the smallest", "the most legible", etc.
Highly, highly recommend reading Adam Savage (Mythbuster fame)'s book about creativity and skepticism, it is filled with good wisdom: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43319933-every-tool-s-a-...
If there is a complete lack of criticism/skepticism, you get a regressive world: https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
It makes perfect sense why these things are greeted with skepticism. Because Most things in the world don't succeed. Most things fail. Thus when you see things treated with negativity and skepticism that is MORE likely to be inline with the actual reality. Thus if HN is actually more negative then normal, then that means HN users have a more realistic view of reality.
>Most replies are either about lack of evidence or someone’s alternative preference. I see that latter one a good deal.
Why is the latter a good deal if it isn't true? If 99.999% of the world doesn't have this alternative preference it's biased to even bring it up. There's no need to be personally insulting but if you think something is genuinely bad then i think it's perfectly ok to just say what you think.
When someone asks for praise, or when someone asks for positivity in a way they are by probability more likely to be asking for fake opinions and white lies. I don't come to HN for that kind of thing. But I will say that Dang (the moderator) loves this kind thing; and the moderation culture he promotes is more inline with your attitude. If you see a negative post, you can flag it, and he will take a side.
The mess with the popular-but-not-effective OpenDyslexic isn't good for anyone except publishers wanting to tick off an "accessibility" checkbox. (Thinking particularly of the library e-reader Axis360 which includes only two fonts; a bad regular font and a "dyslexia font". Neither are particularly readable IMHO.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629233/
It turns out that the fastest fonts to read in are the ones people have practiced using the most.
Given this, perhaps a more useful metric would be the maximum reading speeds for each font. This could give us something of an idea of what is possible given sufficient proficiency.
Fonts like Atkinson Hyperlegible are very well designed around some simple but well accepted principles yet, to most people without a designer's eye, it looks like any other sans serif font
---
PS if you wanna keep up with the latest in font readability research, you should check out the Readability Consortium:
https://www.thereadabilityconsortium.org/
After enough people asked for an OD option in my browser extension (which is used heavily in the dyslexia, ADHD, and vision impaired communities, as well as by other readers), we decided to offer it. I know the science behind it is not stunning, but who am I to tell people that the thing they think helps them read does not actually help them read? Even if they read more slowly with OD than without (something I'm not sure is true for people who choose to use OD), it's possible that one might enjoy reading more with OD even if it doesn't improve reading speed.
I wholeheartedly agree with your point about companies wanting to check the box on accessibility by offering OD, and it's unfortunate more companies don't do more.
Edit: the second link wasn't loading for me, so now I see the study. Bad phone internet... :( Again, still surprised they didn't have the counter study.
> Results from this alternating treatment experiment show no improvement in reading rate or accuracy for individual students with dyslexia, as well as the group as a whole.
Deleted Comment
However in this case it would seem like focusing on ensuring that the letters can be distingushed with poor vision has a more direct mechanism? - though it may be that other fonts are better
AIUI for some people with cognitive difficulties when using text they find orientation of glyphs (which form letter characters) to be difficult to discern, and similarities across glyphs to be confusing. Thus, if glyphs are more differentiated from one another, and if they have a non- rotationally-symmetrical shape, then letters can be easier to comprehend.
I'm curious whether fonts like Dyslexie mighty bed better for those learning to read. Children learning to read often confuse letters, b/d/p/q for example. I can see ways it could both help and hinder.
Many practitioners (and researchers outside the US) have a different view, which is that there are different strains of dyslexia, and some strains are more visual than others. I've talked with SPED teachers who laughed when they heard that researchers think dyslexia is phonological, not visual.
My own belief, based on years of working in the field, is that there is a significant portion of the dyslexia population who can benefit from visual changes to text presentation. This may be a direct symptom of their dyslexia, or it may be an indirect effect of (1) having dyslexia and struggling with reading, which leads to (2) not reading as much and having less-developed pathways related to the visual aspects of reading.
But given how dyslexia is defined as a residual category (roughly: a person who has a low reading level, not caused by visual impairment or deficits in general intellectual ability), it seems highly unlikely that no people with dyslexia have any visual aspects to their condition. There may be some, or even most, for whom the condition is phonological. But reading is visual in nature, so it would be very surprising if the group of people who struggle with it didn't happen to include anyone whose difficulties are visual in nature.
Of course, one can define dyslexia more narrowly (and some do), but schools typically don't. So if a broad range of kids are diagnosed as "dyslexic" in school, then it doesn't make sense for experts to proclaim "dyslexia is never visual, and people who say otherwise are wrong!".
My experience is based on launching a speed-reading tool (on HN, of course! [1]) that ended up becoming popular in the dyslexia and ADHD communities. It is a tool that is visual in nature, and I have gotten tons of emails from people with dyslexia who describe it as life changing. Some experts believe in what we're doing, but others are completely opposed to it. The dogmatism among certain experts conflicts with what I hear from people IRL, some of whom I have literally seen brought to tears by how effective our tools are. Even if what these people have is not "dyslexia" as defined by some people, they struggle with reading and are told they are dyslexic.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335784