Glossary

Search results

Aphasia-Friendly(also: Aphasia-Accessible, Aphasia-Friendly Design)

A set of design practices for making written, spoken, and audiovisual content more accessible to people with aphasia. Established principles (Rose, Worrall, Hickson, Hoffmann) include short sentences with one idea per line, familiar everyday vocabulary, large sans-serif fonts…

Controlled Language(also: Controlled Natural Language, CL)

An explicitly defined restriction of a natural language that specifies constraints on vocabulary, grammar, and style to improve clarity, consistency, and machine processability of text. In accessibility, controlled language rules can be applied to improve the quality of content…

Controlled Language(also: CL, Controlled Natural Language)

A restricted subset of a natural language that limits vocabulary, grammar, and style to reduce ambiguity and improve clarity and consistency in writing. In accessibility, controlled language rules can be applied to verify and improve the quality of text alternatives for images,…

Easy Language(also: Easy-to-Read, Leichte Sprache, Easy Read)

A simplified form of written language designed to make information accessible to people with reading difficulties, including those with intellectual disabilities, prelingual hearing impairments, learning disabilities, low literacy, or limited proficiency in the language. Easy…

Easy Read(also: Easy-to-Read, Easy Language, Plain Language for Cognitive Accessibility)

A method of presenting written information in a way that is accessible to people with intellectual disabilities, learning difficulties, or low literacy. Easy Read uses short sentences, common everyday vocabulary, active voice, and clear structure, often accompanied by images or…

Flesch Reading Ease(also: Flesch Readability Score, Flesch Score, FRE)

A readability formula developed by Rudolf Flesch in 1948 that rates text on a 100-point scale based on average sentence length and average number of syllables per word. Higher scores indicate easier-to-read text: scores of 60-70 are considered suitable for a general audience,…

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level(also: Flesch-Kincaid, FKGL, Flesch-Kincaid readability)

A readability formula that estimates the U.S. school grade level required to comfortably read a given English text, based on average sentence length and average syllables per word. Developed for the U.S. Navy in 1975 by Rudolf Flesch and J. Peter Kincaid, the formula is widely…

Functional Literacy(also: Functional illiteracy)

The level of reading and writing skill needed to handle everyday tasks — filling out forms, reading medication instructions, understanding a utility bill, using a web service. Adults below this threshold are described as functionally illiterate, which in the United States is…

Health Literacy(also: Digital Health Literacy, eHealth Literacy)

The degree to which individuals can obtain, process, understand, and act on health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. In the digital context, health literacy extends to the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from…

Lexile Score(also: Lexile Measure, Lexile Level)

A standardised measure of text complexity and reading ability, expressed on the Lexile scale (roughly 0L to 1600L+). A Lexile text measure reflects sentence length and word frequency; a Lexile reader measure reflects the reader's ability. For accessibility, Lexile scores provide…

Plain Language(also: Plain English, Clear Language, Simple Language)

Plain language is communication that is clear, concise, and well-organized so that the intended audience can easily find, understand, and use the information. In accessibility, plain language is essential for making content accessible to people with cognitive disabilities, low…

Readability(also: Text Readability)

The ease with which written text can be read and understood, determined by factors including vocabulary complexity, sentence length, grammatical structure, and text organisation. Readability is distinct from legibility (which concerns the visual clarity of individual characters…

Text Complexity(also: Linguistic complexity, Text difficulty)

The degree to which a piece of writing demands advanced reading skills to comprehend, driven by factors such as vocabulary frequency, syntactic structure, sentence length, passage organisation, and background-knowledge assumptions. In Automatic Text Simplification and…

13 results.