1 Introduction
2 State of the art
2.1 The easy-to-read methodology
2.2 Automatic approaches for checking E2R compliance and transforming documents
3 Requirements identification: involving E2R experts
3.1 Questionnaire design
3.2 Survey participants
3.3 Survey data
Design and layout guidelines | Writing guidelines |
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1. The text font belongs to the accepted styles | 1. The size of the lines is correct |
2. The font size must be large enough | 2. Large numbers are expressed correctly |
3. Text avoids italics | 3. Text avoids the use of special characters |
4. Text includes moderately bold words | 4. Text avoids the use of ordinal characters |
5. Text includes moderately underlined words | 5. Text is made up of short sentences |
6. Text avoids typographic effects | 6. Dates are written in full |
7. Text uses capital letters according to the general rule | 7. The use of pronouns is correct |
8. The contrast between text and background is correct | 8. Text avoids the use of Roman numbers |
(focused on text color) | 9. Text is written in the second person |
9. The contrast between text and background is correct | 10. Text avoids passive voice |
(focused on background) | 11. Sentences have a subject |
10. The amount of words in the text is correct | 12. Text is made up of simple sentences |
Design and layout guidelines | Writing guidelines |
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DL1. Text should be left-aligned | W1. Do not capitalise words or phrases, except in the case of acronyms |
DL2. Text justification should be avoided | W2. Initial capital letters should be used at the beginning of a paragraph or title, after a full stop or in proper nouns |
DL3. Avoid hyphenating the words at the end of a line | W3. The full stop must be replaced by a new paragraph or by a conjunction |
DL4. All pages of the document must have the same orientation (landscape or portrait) | W4. A colon (:) must be used when entering a list that enumerates more than three items or when entering a dialogue |
DL5. Pictures should be placed close to the text | W5. The semicolon (;) should not be used |
DL6. Pictures must agree with the text and concretely depict what is described in the text | W6. Avoid the use of etcetera or ellipses |
DL7. Pictures cannot be separated between pages | W7. Inverted commas should not be used (Spanish «» or English “ ”) |
DL8. Text written in portrait orientation should be avoided | W8. Adverbs ending in -mente (-ly in English) should be avoided |
DL9. The page number must be included on the outside of the page, at the bottom or at the top | W9. Superlatives should be avoided |
DL10. Minimum line spacing should be 1.5" | W10. The use of words with undefined content such as: thing, something or subject should be avoided |
W11. The telephone numbers must be separated by blocks | |
W12. The use of fractions and percentages should be avoided | |
W13. Avoid writing the time in 24-hour format | |
W14. Passive reflexive should be avoided | |
W15. If possible, the use of sentences with gerunds should be avoided | |
W16. The use of two or more consecutive verbs should be avoided, except for periphrases with the modal verbs | |
W17. The use of complex connectors between sentences, such as therefore, nevertheless or consequently should be avoided | |
W18. The text should be made up of short, simple sentences | |
W19. The use of pronouns must be correct | |
W20. The text must be written in the second person | |
W21. Passive voice should be avoided | |
W22. Sentences must have a subject |
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Regarding Design and Layout Guidelines, 50% of the participants emphasised the treatment of images: there must be a hidden description for people who have visual impairments, writing inside images should be avoided, and images should have a plain background; 33.33% refer to the format of the text: using colours for the division of topics, avoiding the use of italics and bold, or excluding the use of underlining; the rest of the comments propose slight modifications to the guidelines already included in the controlled set of guidelines such as text justification or page number style;
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With respect to Writing Guidelines, most of the comments (37.5%) refer to avoiding the use of abbreviations in texts; the remaining opinions allude to the occasional use of subordination -since a text written only in short sentences can be robotic-, respecting spelling rules, or avoiding the use of foreign words.
3.4 Survey data interpretation and conclusions
4 A proposal for supporting the E2R adaptation of reading materials
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Orthotypography: Do not capitalise words or phrases, except in the case of acronyms (W1) or Inverted commas should not be used (W7);
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Vocabulary: The use of fractions and percentages should be avoided (W12), Avoid writing the time in 24-hour format (W13), or The telephone numbers must be separated by blocks (W11);
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Sentences: Passive reflexive should be avoided (W14) or The text should be made up of short, simple sentences (W18);
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Text organization: The text must be written in the second person (W20).
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Presentation: The font size must be large enough and the contrast between text color and background color must be correct; these guidelines are already implemented in Easy-to-Read Advisor [26]; additional examples are Avoid hyphenating the words at the end of a line (DL3) and Minimum line spacing should be 1.5" (DL10);
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Images: Pictures must agree with the text and concretely depict what is described in the text (DL6) and Pictures should be placed close to the text (DL5);
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Paratextual complements: Notes describing difficult-to-understand words must be provided [19].
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Regarding Design and Layout Guidelines, both methods for document assessment and suggestion of transformations are planned to be developed for DL6, DL5, DL7, DL3, DL10, DL8, and DL4, based on the ranking presented in Fig. 4. The development of an E2R assessment method for DL1 and an E2R suggestion method for DL9 and DL2 is also planned, according to the rankings shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Indeed, we currently have an early prototype for the service associated to DL6;
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With respect to Writing Guidelines, both the assessment and the suggestion of transformations methods are planned to be developed for W14, W19, W22, and W21, based on the ranking presented in Fig. 4; while E2R assessment methods for guidelines W4, and W2, and E2R suggestion methods for W20, W7, W17, W10, W13, and W9 are also planned to be developed, according to the rankings shown in Figs. 3 and 4. Indeed, we currently have early prototypes for services associated to W10, W13, W17, and W21 as well as a working prototype for W9 service.