Write so that people who find reading hard can follow

How to do it

People with dyslexia, memory loss, attention disorders or a brain injury read more slowly and lose the thread in long sentences. The W3C note on cognitive accessibility asks for clear words, short blocks of text and predictable steps. Lead with what the person must do, then why. Use the words your customers use, and the same word for the same thing everywhere, as Keep navigation in the same order asks of controls. Show where people are in a long process, such as "Step 2 of 4". Put a worked example next to any field with a format. Most of this goes beyond WCAG AA, but WCAG 3.1.5 (AAA) asks for text no harder than lower secondary school. Errors still follow Explain form errors next to the field.

Examples

JavaScript example

const MAX_WORDS = 25;
const sentences = text => text.split(/(?<=[.!?])\s+/).filter(Boolean);
const tooLong = text => sentences(text).filter(s => s.split(/\s+/).length > MAX_WORDS);

for (const page of ['/signup', '/checkout', '/help']) {
  await browser.goto(`https://example.com${page}`);
  expect(tooLong(await browser.locator('main').innerText())).toEqual([]);
}

Python example

MAX_WORDS = 25

def too_long(text: str) -> list[str]:
    sentences = re.split(r"(?<=[.!?])\s+", text)
    return [s for s in sentences if len(s.split()) > MAX_WORDS]

for path in ["/signup", "/checkout", "/help"]:
    page.goto(f"https://example.com{path}")
    assert too_long(page.locator("main").inner_text()) == []

How to check

A build test reads the visible text of the sign-up, checkout and help pages and every error message. No sentence has more than 25 words, and each page scores at most grade 9 on a readability formula, such as Flesch-Kincaid.

Sources

• W3C – Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities
• WCAG 2.2 – 3.1.5 Reading Level

Related rules

• AXS-23 Keep navigation in the same order in Accessibility
• AXS-28 Explain form errors next to the field in Accessibility