Methods for measuring text readability
Content is often overlooked when working with a web site to increase accessibility. Even if your web site follows all W3C recommendations it will still be inaccessible if your content is difficult to comprehend. Let’s have a look at how you can measure text readability in english, spanish, swedish, danish and french to get a feel for the readability of your content.
In this article we will have a look at how you can test your content to see give a brief overview of formulas for measuring readability as well as an online tool to measure readability for your texts.
Content is commonly overlooked when working with a web site to increase accessibility. Even if your web site follows all W3C recommendations it will still be inaccessible if your content is difficult to comprehend. As previously mentioned here and elsewhere you can do a lot to increase accessibility by working with your content.
The technical aspects of accessibility is often more easy than the content aspects. If you are reading this you probably already know how to create an accessible web site by using the W3C recommendations. You also know how to use the W3C validator to test your templates before you put them onto your live site. Content, on the other hand, varies over time and is often created by a large number of people, each with their own personal style of writing. It is also more difficult to test using an automated tool.