Readability tests

> What tests for clear writing do you know of Lisa.  Please send thoughts.

I've implemented a service on Juicy Studio that determines the Gunning Fog
Index, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid Grade of a web document
<http://juicystudio.com/fog/>. I'm not sure of its usefulness (if any) for
languages other than English, and I'm also not convinced about the
underlying principles behind the algorithms. The algorithms favour short
monosyllabic sentences, regardless of whether the sentence makes sense.
Obviously, it's possible to get a good score with gobbledy-gook, but I've
had quite a lot of positive feedback about its usefulness. Could make a
starting point?

Best regards,

Gez

_____________________________
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IWA/HWG Member


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregg Vanderheiden" <gv@trace.wisc.edu>
To: <lisa@ubaccess.com>; "'Chris Ridpath'" <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>;
"'WAI WCAG List'" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:51 PM
Subject: RE: [w3c-wai-gl] <none>


>
> HMM
>
> What tests for clear writing do you know of Lisa.  Please send thoughts.
> This one has stumped us.  Lots of things to measure but nothing that
really
> separates clear from unclear.   Maybe we can't have a 'pass = fail' but we
> could have something that would provide indicators of things that usually
> accompany less clear writing.
>
>
> Gregg
>
>  -- ------------------------------ 
> Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
> Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
> Director - Trace R & D Center
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf
> Of lisa@ubaccess.com
> Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 6:36 AM
> To: Chris Ridpath; WAI WCAG List
> Subject: [w3c-wai-gl] <none>
>
> Looks like a lot of work Chris
>
> a few comments
>
> 1, I would love to see some tests for clear writing, which for English
> there are a lot. Are you writing them?
> 2, Not minimizing the real usefulness of this work, a lot of the tests do
> not guarantee conformance or accessibility, but are a useful as a  yard
> stick and as an alarm bell...
>
> The best yard stick is still testing your interface with people with
> disabilities. It would be a shame for people to reduce the amount of user
> testing.
> I would like to see something along thoughs lines as a footnote on each
> test page.
>
> 3, puting the two points together. A sentence that has
> a, a low reading age score,
> b, a low number of conjunctions and comers,
> c, is short
> is probably clear and simple.
>
>  Certainly failing these "testable" criteria is a good alarm bell that you
> may want a rewrite. But to be safe, test with users with Learning
> disabilities
>
>
> Keep well
> Lisa Seeman
>
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 13 October 2004 17:49:29 UTC