Fonts that apparently help you read faster
- Published on
- · 2 min read
- Author
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- Name
- Jen Chan
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If you’ve lost all motivation to work from babysitting torrential amounts of LLM codegen, I’ve found one more shovelling aid.
Some years ago, “bionic reading”, or the use of half-bolded fonts in e-readers and browsers made its rounds on Reddit. Differing studies claimed it would help those who are neurotical read faster, while others disprove the effectiveness or found that benefits were marginal.
I am verbose and longwinded, so in a bid to keep your attention, I thought it might be fun to include it on my site.
Click the book icon in the top nav to try it.
The Bionic Reading font retails for $79 USD/EU/CH but I found an open source version at Born2Root/Fast-Font. The project includes several variants — serif, sans, monospaced (based on FiraCode with ligatures), and even a dyslexic-friendly version.
If you’re curious to alter your reading experience, there’s also OpenDyslexie, this bionic-reading.nvim Neovim plugin, and the HalfBold browser extension.
References
- Snell, J. (2024). No, Bionic Reading does not work. Acta Psychologica, 247, 104304.
- Možina, K., Kovačević, D., & Blaznik, B. (2025). Usability of Bionic Reading on Different Mediums: Eye-Tracking Study. SAGE Open.
- Sardido, J.L., et al. (2024). A Causal-Comparative Analysis on the Integration of Bionic Fonts in Science Reading Materials. Jurnal Pendidikan Progresif, 14(1), 59-73.
- Vascelli, L., et al. (2026). Evaluation of the Effect of Bionic Reading on Reading Skills in Individuals With Specific Learning Disabilities. Journal of Clinical & Developmental Psychology, 8(1).