A
Professor
Institute of Design and Visual Interaction
Sofie Beier
Sofie Beier is Denmark's first scientific professor who trained as a designer. She combines a designer's instincts with psychology, AI, and eye-tracking technology. Rather than simply accepting old typographic rules as truth, she tests them, using the same validated lab methods as the natural sciences, to find out what actually makes text easier to read, for as many people as possible.
Sofie Beier
Taking a closer look at the basics of readability
Sofie Beier puts typography designers’ long-held rules of thumb to the test using psychological experiments, artificial intelligence, and eye-tracking technology.
Ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press, we’ve been used to reading in a fixed, static way.
Today, much of our reading happens on screens, where we could in theory make the experience more flexible and better suited to individual needs. But the default is still static, essentially copying how text looks on a printed page.
As head of the Centre for Visibility Design and a leading researcher at the intersection of typography and the psychology of perception, Sofie Beier investigates how the reading process is shaped by typographic choices, and how text can be adapted for different readers and situations.
“If you were to redesign how we encounter text, you'd need to personalise it. Many older generations think of reading as reading a book. But that idea is changing. Books won't disappear, they'll just become one niche format among many others that will be far more dominant. Future generations will read differently, not less. That’s what’s exciting to figure out.”
Design backed by evidence
The design world has built up a set of accepted truths and rules of thumb about what works typographically. Sofie Beier tests these in the lab using psychological experiments.
Often her findings confirm what designers have long believed, but sometimes a myth gets busted. For example, her experiments show that serifs (the small decorative strokes on letters) don’t actually have any effect on readability in themselves.
“I'm fascinated by how the lived experiences of designers become accepted as truth. My research questions these ‘lived truths’ and examines in the lab whether what we tell each other actually holds up.”
Sofie Beier's experiments isolate specific typographic variables, such as whether letters are open or closed in shape, letter spacing, and letter size, and test how they affect the reading experience, both on paper and on screen. Small typographic tweaks, like changing the colour or spacing of letters, have been shown to produce noticeable improvements in both reading speed and comprehension, especially for children who struggle with reading.
In the lab, Beier has also introduced digital eye-tracking and artificial intelligence as research tools.
The ScreenReads project is developing new technology that combines data on eye movements and read-aloud performance to understand where and why reading becomes difficult. The project is a collaboration with Professionshøjskolen Absalon and the companies EyeJustRead and Serious Games Interactive.
Rather than just measuring reading, the technology produces automated analyses and practical recommendations for teachers and reading specialists, helping them choose appropriate texts and tailor support for individual pupils. The goal is to make it easier to match teaching to a child's current level, and in turn boost both reading flow and motivation.
Beier is also part of a research project called Reading the Reader, which uses AI to adapt the typography of texts to individual readers. Developed in collaboration with Per Bækgaard from DTU, the project aims to build an AI model that can map people's reading patterns and adjust reading material accordingly. It has particular potential for people with low vision, and could also help diagnose why some people struggle with reading.
