Improving Web Page Readability by Plain Language

In today's world anybody who wants to access any information the first choice is to use the web because it is the only source to provide easy and instant access to information. However web readers face many hurdles from web which includes load of web pages, text size, finding related information, spelling and grammar etc. However understanding of web pages written in English language creates great problems for non native readers who have basic knowledge of English. In this paper, we propose a plain language for a local language (Urdu) using English alphabets for web pages in Pakistan. For this purpose we developed two websites, one with a normal English fonts and other in a local language text scheme using English alphabets. We also conducted a questionnaire from 40 different users with a different level of English language fluency in Pakistan to gain the evidence of the practicality of our approach. The result shows that the proposed plain language text scheme using English alphabets improved the reading comprehension for non native English speakers in Pakistan

Web page enhancement on desktop and mobile browsers

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2013."February 2013." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-165).The Web is a convenient platform to deliver information, but reading web pages is not as easy as it was in 1990s. This thesis focuses on investigating techniques to enhance web pages on desktop and mobile browsers for two specific populations: non-native English readers and mobile users. There are three issues addressed in this thesis: web page readability, web page skimmability and continuous reading support on mobile devices. On today's primarily English-language Web, non-native readers encounter some problems, even if they have some fluency in English. This thesis focuses on content presentation and proposes a new transformation method, Jenga Format, to enhance web page readability. A user study with 30 non-native users showed that Jenga transformation not only improved reading comprehension, but also made the web page reading easier. On the other hand, readability research has found that average reading times for non-native readers has remained the same or even worse. This thesis studies this issue and proposes Froggy GX (Generation neXt) to improve reading under time constraints. A user study with 20 non-native users showed that Froggy GX not only enhanced reading comprehension under time constraints, but also provided higher user satisfaction than reading unaided. When using the Web on mobile devices, the reading situation becomes challenging. Even worse, context switches, such as from walking to sitting, static standing, or hands-free situations like driving, happen in reading in on-the-go situations, but this scenario was not adequately addressed in previous studies. This thesis investigates this scenario and proposes a new mobile browser, Read4Me, to support continuous reading on a mobile device. A user study with 10 mobile users showed that auto-switching not only provided significantly fewer dangerous encounters than visual-reading, but also provided the best reading experience.by Chen-Hsiang Yu.Ph.D

Web readability factors affecting users of all ages

With the increase in the growth of internet since 1990 WorldWide Web have gained a worldwide popularity.Web has become an ultimate source of information throughout the world. The web has been a source of information, knowledge, entertainment and carrying out different tasks such as online shopping, reservation etc. Every one finds ways to the web due to easiness of access and the bulk of information that has been available so ways to make web more attractive and easy to interact with has been an issue under discussion since its inception. In this paper we have focused how to make a webpage more usable for different age group in terms of readability. We have focused on eight eternal readability factors i.e. color contrast, white space, line spacing, font style, font size, text width, headings, graphics and animation. These eight factors are compared that how different age group people behave with the web applications by varying these eight factors. Based on literature review we have proposed an idea that how to make web more readable for people of different age groups e.g. children, teenagers and old /senior users

Intralingual translation and cascading crises: evaluating the impact of semi-automation on the readability and comprehensibility of health content

During crises, intralingual translation (or simplification) of medical content can facilitate comprehension among lay readers and foster their compliance with instructions aimed to avoid or mitigate the cascading effects of crises. The onus of simplifying health-related texts often falls on medical experts, and the task of intralingual translation tends to be nonautomated. Medical authors are asked to check and remember different sets of plain language guidelines, while also relying on their interpretation of how and when to implement these guidelines. Accordingly, even simplified health-related texts present characteristics that make them difficult to read and comprehend, particularly for an audience with low (health) literacy. Against this background, this chapter describes an experimental study aimed at testing the impact that using a controlled language (CL) checker to semi-automate intralingual translation has on the readability and comprehensibility of medical content. The study focused on the plain language summaries and abstracts produced by the non-profit organisation Cochrane. Using Coh-Metrix and recall, this investigation found that the introduction of a CL checker influenced some readability features, but not lay readers’ comprehension, regardless of their native language. Finally, strategies to enhance the comprehensibility of health content and reduce the vulnerability of readers in crises are discussed

Design guidelines for web readability

Reading is fundamental to interactive-system use, but around 800 million of people might struggle with it due to literacy difficulties. Few websites are designed for high readability, as readability remains an underinvestigated facet of User Experience. Existing readability guidelines have multiple issues: they are too many or too generic, poorly worded, and often lack cognitive grounding. This paper developed a set of 61 readability guidelines in a series of workshops with design and dyslexia experts. A user study with dyslexic and average readers further narrowed the 61-guideline set down to a core set of 12 guidelines - an acceptably small set to keep in mind while designing. The core-set guidelines address reformatting - such as using larger fonts and narrower content columns, or avoiding underlining and italics - and may well aply to the interactive system other than websites. © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s)

“The Sum of All Human Knowledge”: A Systematic Review of Scholarly Research on the Content of Wikipedia

Wikipedia might possibly be the best-developed attempt thus far of the enduring quest to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it an irresistible point of inquiry for researchers from various fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and content. However, due to the variety of the fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedia’s content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer-reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies

Detecting Deceptive Dark-Pattern Web Advertisements for Blind Screen-Reader Users

Advertisements have become commonplace on modern websites. While ads are typically designed for visual consumption, it is unclear how they affect blind users who interact with the ads using a screen reader. Existing research studies on non-visual web interaction predominantly focus on general web browsing; the specific impact of extraneous ad content on blind users\u27 experience remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, we conducted an interview study with 18 blind participants; we found that blind users are often deceived by ads that contextually blend in with the surrounding web page content. While ad blockers can address this problem via a blanket filtering operation, many websites are increasingly denying access if an ad blocker is active. Moreover, ad blockers often do not filter out internal ads injected by the websites themselves. Therefore, we devised an algorithm to automatically identify contextually deceptive ads on a web page. Specifically, we built a detection model that leverages a multi-modal combination of handcrafted and automatically extracted features to determine if a particular ad is contextually deceptive. Evaluations of the model on a representative test dataset and \u27in-the-wild\u27 random websites yielded F1 scores of 0.86 and 0.88, respectively

A Review of Research-Based Automatic Text Simplification Tools

In the age of knowledge, the democratisation of information facilitated through the Internet may not be as pervasive if written language poses challenges to particular sectors of the population. The objective of this paper is to present an overview of research-based automatic text simplification tools. Consequently, we describe aspects such as the language, language phenomena, language levels simplified, approaches, specific target populations these tools are created for (e.g. individuals with cognitive impairment, attention deficit, elderly people, children, language learners), and accessibility and availability considerations. The review of existing studies covering automatic text simplification tools is undergone by searching two databases: Web of Science and Scopus. The eligibility criteria involve text simplification tools with a scientific background in order to ascertain how they operate. This methodology yielded 27 text simplification tools that are further analysed. Some of the main conclusions reached with this review are the lack of resources accessible to the public, the need for customisation to foster the individual’s independence by allowing the user to select what s/he finds challenging to understand while not limiting the user’s capabilities and the need for more simplification tools in languages other than English, to mention a few.This research was conducted as part of the Clear-Text project (TED2021-130707B-I00), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR