Is the webpage text appropriate to a lower secondary school education level? (TXT24)
Why is this important?
The text on a webpage should be easy to read. This will benefit all users but in particular people with specific learning disabilities who may have trouble reading and understanding complex text. A benchmark suggested by the W3C is to make sure text could be read and understood by somebody with a lower secondary school education level.
How to fix the problem
Readability tools are available online and are built into word processing applications, such as Microsoft Word. Such tools will provide you with an indication of how easily your alternative text can be read and understood. However, there are various definitions of readability measuring different aspects of text (e.g. average sentence length, average word length, percentage of words on an approved "safe" list etc.). Therefore, the output of such tools should be taken only as an indication rather than a definitive measurement of readability. Writing text that is easy to read may take some practice. The W3C provides a list of tips to reduce the complexity of text:
- Develop a single topic or subtopic per paragraph.
- Use the simplest sentence forms consistent with the purpose of the content. For example, the simplest sentence-form for English consists of Subject-Verb-Object, as in John hit the ball or The Web site conforms to WCAG 2.0.
- Use sentences that are no longer than the typical accepted length for secondary education. (Note: In English that is 25 words.)
- Consider dividing longer sentences into two.
- Use sentences that contain no more than two conjunction.
- Indicate logical relationships between phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or sections of the text.
- Avoid professional jargon, slang, and other terms with a specialized meaning that may not be clear to people.
- Replace long or unfamiliar words with shorter, more common terms.
- Remove redundant words, that is, words that do not change the meaning of the sentence.
- Use single nouns or short noun-phrases.
- Remove complex words or phrases that could be replaced with more commonly used words without changing the meaning of the sentence.
- Use bulleted or numbered lists instead of paragraphs that contain long series of words or phrases separated by commas.
- Make clear pronoun references and references to other points in the document.
- Use the active voice for documents written in English and some other Western languages, unless there is a specific reason for using passive constructions. Sentences in the active voice are often shorter and easier to understand than those in the passive voice.
- Use verb tenses consistently.
- Use names and labels consistently.
Example
No example is available.
Further Information
- http://www.read-able.com
- http://www.standards-schmandards.com/2005/measuring-text-readability/
- http://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/