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Readability formulas have even more limitations than Klare discusses

Author:

Janice RedishAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Journal of Computer Documentation (JCD), Volume 24, Issue 3

Pages 132 - 137

https://doi.org/10.1145/344599.344637

Published: 01 August 2000 Publication History

Abstract

A literature review reveals many technical weaknesses of readability formulas (when compared to direct usability testing with typical readers): they were developed for children s school books, not adult technical documentation;they ignore between-reader differences and the effects of content, layout, and retrieval aids on text usefulness; they emphasize countable features at the expense of more subtle contributors to text comprehension.

References

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Charrow, R. P. and Charrow, V. R. (1979). Making legal language understandable: A psycholinguistic study of jury instructions. Columbia Law Review, 79, 1306-1374.

[2]

Dumas, J. S. and Redish, J. C. (1999). A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Exeter, England: Intellect (revised edition); originally published by Ablex, 1993.

[3]

Duffy, T. M. (1985). Readability formulas: What's the use? In T. M. Dully and R. M. Waller (Eds.), Designing Usable Texts (pp. 113-143). NY: Academic Press.

[4]

Holland, V. M. and Campbell, L. J. (1982). Understanding the language of public documents because readability formulas don't. In R. J. Di Pietro (Ed.), Linguistics and the Professions (pp. 157-171). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

[5]

Hughes, M. (1999). Rigor in usability testing. Technical Communication, 46(4), Fourth Quarter, 488-494.

[6]

Jacobson, M. D., Kirkland, C. E., and Selden, R. W. (1978). An examination of the McCall- Crabbs standard test lessons in reading. Journal of Reading, 22, 224-230.

[7]

Klare, G. R. (1979). Readability Standards for Army- Wide Publications. Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN: U. S. Army Administrative Center.

[8]

Klare, G. R. (1976). A second look at the validity of readability formulas. Journal of Reading Behavior, 8, 129-152.

[9]

Klare, G. R. (1963). The Measurement of Readability. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.

[10]

Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering, San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

[11]

Redish, J. C. (1980). Readability. In D. B. Felker (Ed.), Document Design: A Review of the Relevant Research (pp. 69-93). Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

[12]

Redish, J. C. and Seizer, J. (1985). The place of readability formulas in technical communication. Technical Communication, 32(4), Fourth Quarter, 46-52.

[13]

Rubin, J. (1994). Handbook of Usability Testing. NY: John Wiley & Sons.

[14]

Schriver, K. A. (1997). Dynamics in Document Design. NY: John Wiley & Sons.

[15]

Seizer, J. (1983). What constitutes a "readable" technical style? In E V. Anderson, J. Brockmann, and C. R. Miller (Eds.), New Essays in Technical and Scientific Communication: Research, Theory, and Practice (pp. 71-89). Farmington, NY: Baywood.

Cited By

Picton BAndalib SSpina ACamp BSolomon SLiang JChen PChen JHsu FOh M(2025)Assessing AI Simplification of Medical Texts: Readability and Content FidelityInternational Journal of Medical Informatics10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2024.105743195(105743)Online publication date: Mar-2025
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Zidan AMunsour EKheir N(2025)Readability formulae: Guiding the development of health and medicine informationHealth Literacy in Medicines Use and Pharmacy10.1016/B978-0-12-824407-4.00008-8(139-163)Online publication date: 2025
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Readability formulas have even more limitations than Klare discusses

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Published In

cover image ACM Journal of Computer Documentation

ACM Journal of Computer Documentation Volume 24, Issue 3

Aug. 2000

77 pages

ISSN:1527-6805

EISSN:1557-9441

DOI:10.1145/344599

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2000 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 August 2000

Published in JCD Volume 24, Issue 3

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Cited By

Picton BAndalib SSpina ACamp BSolomon SLiang JChen PChen JHsu FOh M(2025)Assessing AI Simplification of Medical Texts: Readability and Content FidelityInternational Journal of Medical Informatics10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2024.105743195(105743)Online publication date: Mar-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2024.105743
Zidan AMunsour EKheir N(2025)Readability formulae: Guiding the development of health and medicine informationHealth Literacy in Medicines Use and Pharmacy10.1016/B978-0-12-824407-4.00008-8(139-163)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-824407-4.00008-8
Kurtz-Rossi SOkonkwo IChen YDueñas NBilodeau TRushforth AKlein A(2024)Development of a New Tool for Writing Research Key Information in Plain LanguageHLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice10.3928/24748307-20240218-018:1Online publication date: Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.3928/24748307-20240218-01
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Jit SSpinney JChandra PChilton LSoden R(2024)Writing out the Storm: Designing and Evaluating Tools for Weather Risk MessagingProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641926(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Pappová MValko M(2024)Mistrík’s Readability Metric – an Online LibraryText, Speech, and Dialogue10.1007/978-3-031-70563-2_23(291-302)Online publication date: 9-Sep-2024
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Steenhuis QWilley BColarusso DAndrade FGrabmair M(2023)Beyond Readability with RateMyPDFProceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law10.1145/3594536.3595146(287-296)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
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