1.3 Readability
Readability refers to the quality of information and how easy it is to read and understand. In one study, up to 43% of written health information is often too complex for adults in the UK to understand (Rowlands et al., 2015). The average reading age of adults in the UK is typical of a child of nine years old (National Literacy Trust, 2023).
Members of the public are the largest group of people who raise concerns about registrants to a regulator, so the information available for people considering raising a concern with a regulator must be easy enough to be read by the UK average reading age.
It is also important to note that people who have raised a concern have been through trauma. So even if they have previously had a high reading age, it can impact their ability to understand and retain information.
Some regulators provided ‘easy read’ documents which use pictures and simple language to provide information and are primarily intended for people with learning difficulties.
What did we find out about the readability of regulator information?
We reviewed the information provided by regulators using different measures of readability. These measures are explained in Figure 2. Click on the plus signs to read the explanations.
Acceptable readability is a score of 80+. We found that none of the regulator documents met this 80+ standard. Three met 60+ which is a reading age of 14–15 years old. Eight met 50+ which is readable by 16–17 year olds. Readability scores are generally inconsistent across regulators. Easy read documents (there were 8 in total) ranged from scores of 59–88. One easy read document was deemed to be a score of 80+, the remaining seven did not meet this score. This suggests that ‘easy read’ documents may not be sufficiently easy to read for the intended audience.
Recommendations
Based on our findings we suggested the following:
- Keep the readability score to 60+ wherever possible (note: this may not always be possible for documents that include direct quotations, e.g. from research participants or where complex topics are covered).
- Mainly use one (them, a, the) to two-syllable words (pic-nic, tic-ket, un-less), except those polysyllable words in common use such as ‘es-ca-la-tor’.
- Avoid passive voice. Focus on the person or object that acts, not the person that experiences the action or object. For example,‘he praised them’ rather than ‘they were praised’.
- Avoid long sentences of more than 25 words.
- Use minimal medical and legal jargon and, where used, give a glossary or explanation.
- Always be consistent with the language and terms, e.g. use one term, not several (complaint, referral, concern, notification).
- Bullet points are better than detailed text to summarise information.
- Check spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- Avoid symbols and quotation marks.
- Only use comparisons between one thing and another (analogies) if they are familiar, and culturally and religiously appropriate.