RE: for info: how DWP approached Easy Read

Hi All,

I love this work. It is very similar to my own.

I am researching and developing AI-powered web-text simplification on a mass scale. I am also working on a human-curated approach. A little more info can be found at EasyText.AI<https://www.easytext.ai/>.

I reached out to the Easy Read group to see if it is interested in collaboration. My thanks go to Steve for bringing this great work to my attention, and to all of you working in this area.

John

John Rochford<http://bit.ly/profile-rj>
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center
Director, INDEX Program
Faculty, Family Medicine & Community Health
www.DisabilityInfo.org
LinkedIn Profile<http://bit.ly/profile-rj>
EasyText.AI Research<http://easytext.ai/>

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From: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 8:00 AM
To: Pascalides, Justine E <JPascalides@ETS.ORG>
Cc: COGA TF <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>
Subject: Re: for info: how DWP approached Easy Read

Justine wrote:
> In considering SC 1.4.8 Visual Presentation, specifically “Text can be resized without assistive technology up to 200 percent in a way that does not require the user to scroll horizontally to read a line of text on a full-screen window<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.w3.org_TR_WCAG21_-23dfn-2Don-2Da-2Dfull-2Dscreen-2Dwindow&d=DwMGaQ&c=WJBj9sUF1mbpVIAf3biu3CPHX4MeRjY_w4DerPlOmhQ&r=CueeOhb9CA5L2yfl16hThwCe1zS5LdHYD5MikPNgKr4&m=C6I0-hd1Yt1OI7v1PHtBv5dCOSC5hdA7ns_u5_X71Xw&s=Acq68lQ11y8ZWC-xKg_ScYSGHMggv4v3iYZhMftRNoE&e=>” how would the implementation of Easy Read interact with this particular SC?

It is possible to do, I’d also refer to ‘Reflow’ in WCAG 2.1, where it should work at 320px wide.

They said at the end:
“Content designers in DWP are working on an easy read HTML template so we can move away from PDF. Currently, our easy read products are in PDF format so we can follow the design format of images left, text right. We recognise PDF does not work for everyone and has limitations so look forward to seeing what we can do HTML-wise, and see this as a work in progress.”

It is possible to reflow PDFs, although you have less control of the display compared to CSS & media queries so an HTML version would be better in general.

I often frame it a ‘translation’, e.g. whenever a client is thinking about sign language I point out there are other audiences who would also benefit from translated content, like easy read.

Cheers,

-Alastair