How we design.

Designed for the platform, not the desk

Nobody checks this site in a quiet office. They check it on the sidewalk, in sun or rain, often one-handed, sometimes with low vision, sometimes with a train about to leave. So the answer comes first, the type is large, the contrast is high, and a whole row is something you can tap, not a thin link you have to aim for.

A typeface made to be told apart

The words on this site are set in Atkinson Hyperlegible Next. The first version was made by the Braille Institute of America, released free in 2019, and named after the institute's founder, J. Robert Atkinson. Most typefaces are designed to look good. This one was designed to be read by people who don't see well.

In 2025 the institute released Next, a new version with a full range of weights, from thin to extra bold, and support for many more languages. That range matters here: a headline can be heavy and a label can be light without switching to a less legible font to get there.

In many clean, modern fonts, a capital I, a lowercase l, and the number 1 are nearly the same straight line. For a reader with low vision, that can be the difference between “Line 1” and “Line I,” or between reading “Illinois Medical District” and guessing at it. Atkinson Hyperlegible gives letters like these their own shapes, so each one can be recognized even when the word around it is a blur.

We put it side by side with the typefaces most modern sites use. Those looked sleeker. This one was easier to read. For a site whose whole job is to be read at a glance, by people who may not see well, that settled it.

Words before colors

Red, amber, and green help, but about 1 in 12 men has some form of color blindness. So no status on this site is color alone. Every one is written out: “No working elevators,” “Partial elevator outage,” “Not wheelchair accessible.” On the map, a station with a problem also carries a symbol. Color is the second signal, never the only one.

Blunt on purpose

Transit notices tend to say “temporarily unavailable” or “alternate accommodations.” We say what it means for you: no working elevators, stairs only. And when an agency doesn't tell us something, we don't fill the gap with a guess. How we count explains exactly what each mark can and can't mean.

Nothing in the way

No sign-up, no ads, no pop-up standing between you and the answer. That isn't a style choice. It's our promise.