The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2023–2025
Omantel built the first dyslexia-friendly Arabic font and gave it away
No Arabic font dyslexics could use, so Omantel commissioned one — designed backwards from the disability — and open-sourced it for institutions to adopt.
Omantel
The solution
Arabic is one of the hardest scripts for dyslexic readers: letters share near-identical base bodies and inner spaces, so glyphs blur together. A study of 650 Arabic fonts on people with dyslexia found no widely usable option, despite one in nine people in the Arab world having dyslexia — over 8.4 million people in the MENA region.
Omantel, Oman's incumbent telecom, commissioned Leo Burnett Dubai to build Maqroo ('readable'). Every draft was tested with dyslexic volunteers who read, drew and sketched what they perceived while stress levels were measured. The counter-intuitive finding: consistency hurts. Maqroo forces irregularity — inner-space similarity drops from 98% to 58%, dots and tashkeel marks are enlarged — so each glyph becomes distinct through its own irregularities.
The font is open-source and free to everyone. Omantel uses it across its apps, websites and printed materials, and partnered with Oman's Ministry of Education to bring it into classrooms. The initiative won a Grand Prix at Dubai Lynx 2024 and accolades at the Effie Awards, converting a marketing budget into infrastructure.
Why it worked
- It fixes the platform instead of the message: the brand asset is the actual solution, not a claim about caring, so there is nothing for a skeptical audience to discount.
- Open-sourcing turns adoption into distribution — schools, designers and organizations promote Omantel's name for free, including the education ministry that would ignore an ad.
- Designing backward from the disability produced a genuine innovation (irregularity), which is what made it newsworthy and award-winning.
- Every document set in Maqroo is a persistent, unskippable brand touchpoint long after the campaign ends.
What can be applied
When the audience can't use the medium, build the medium for them: an open-source fix outlives an ad and keeps carrying the brand name with every use.
Aftermath
After the February 2025 official launch at The Chedi Muscat, attended by Oman's Minister of Education, Omantel continued integrating Maqroo into digital platforms and public communication materials. The font remains free to download and the partnership with the education sector is ongoing.
Sources
- Omantel Unveils Maqroo, the First Arabic Dyslexic-Friendly Font
- 'The key is irregularity': This Arabic font is made to accommodate dyslexic readers
- Dubai Lynx announces 2024 Winners
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