EASIT
Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
This is Unit 2:
Easy-to-understand language, in short E2U.
Element 5: Visual presentation of E2U.
Video lecture: Visual presentation of E2U:
format and paratextual aspects.
My name is Sergio Hernández Garrido from the University of Hildesheim.
In this short video lecture,
I will talk about the visual presentation of content
in easy-to-understand language, focussing on the format.
I will talk about the visual layout formatting
of texts in Easy and Plain Language
and what should be kept in mind concerning this aspect.
One sentence per line: Comprehensibility is enhanced
if each sentence is put on a new line.
This principle makes the single sentences stand out.
The target groups tend to have comprehension difficulties,
if sentences are too long
and sentence borders are hard to perceive.
The easy-to-understand varieties have different approaches here:
For Easy Language in Germany,
one sentence per line is a basic rule.
Thus, comprehensibility is maximized for this aspect.
Yet, new research shows
that placing each sentence on a new line
may represent an acceptability hazard:
parts of the primary target groups and the general public
tend to look down on Easy Language texts
as they are associated with communication impairment.
Communication impairment carries a stigma.
If each sentence is placed on a new line,
it is made very visible
that the text is written in Easy Language.
This can lead to reduced acceptability
of this text.
Plain Language does not follow this layout rule.
Plain Language texts
usually have continuous layout across sentence borders,
even such Plain Language texts
that are quite close to Easy Language.
This is a higher effort for the readers
and requests more developed reading skills.
Plain Language texts might therefore not be easy enough
for readers with low reading skills.
But as they don't visually stand out from the standard,
Plain Language texts are more acceptable
for parts of the primary target groups
and for the broad public.
On font size:
To use a bigger font size and line spacing
increases perceptibility.
It also helps users with slighter forms
of visual impairments, which is the case more frequently
in the primary target groups than in the average population.
Therefore, it is a widespread strategy for texts
in easy-to-understand language
to use a bigger font size than the regular texts.
This strategy may be employed to a varying extent.
It is very apparent in Easy Language texts.
Plain Language may use that strategy
to a much lesser extent or not at all,
depending on the target groups and target situation.
On the choice of fonts:
Easy Language rulesets prefer sans serif fonts
as they are supposed to increase perceptibility
and are therefore easier to read.
They are thus assumed to increase comprehensibility.
Serifs is a term from the field of typography
that refers to an aesthetic feature of fonts.
Serifs are small lines
that are attached to the ends of a letter.
To people with low reading skills or with visual impairments,
serifs can harm the reading process.
For that reason, it is recommended to use fonts without serifs.
This applies for both Easy and Plain Language.
On highlighting:
Important information in a text should be highlighted,
both in Easy and Plain Language.
It is recommended
to highlight important information
and important words
with bold type
as this increases perceptibility for target groups.
Colours may not be perceptible for everyone of the target groups,
especially for readers with visual impairments.
Not all colours make good contrasts
which could represent a hazard to reading.
And people might have an impaired colour perception.
Therefore, colours should never be the only instrument
to highlight important information.
On using indentations:
In previous presentations we have stated
that it is important to add information
that is supposed to be unknown to the target groups.
This is especially important
if this information is relevant to understand the text
and crucial to fulfil the text’s goal
in the target situation.
A problem is that it is not easy to incorporate
this additional information logically into the text.
Additional information may render a text less readable;
it may be a hazard to comprehension at text level,
as the argument line is blurred
by information inserts and explanations.
On the other hand, the primary target groups
will need a certain level of extra information on the subject
to compensate for a lack of knowledge on the subject.
Comprehensibility-enhanced texts, especially in Easy Language,
cannot do without added explanations.
So what can be done?
It is possible to make the explanations
stand out visually from the rest of the text.
In german Easy Language texts,
indentations are often used for this purpose.
That means, an explanation of a word in the text, for example,
is not placed in the same position as the rest of the text,
but is layouted with an indent.
This way, the translator can make it visually clear
that the information is an example
or an explanation of a word or aspect of the text.
This video lecture has been prepared
by Sergio Hernández and Christiane Maaß
from the University of Hildesheim.
You can reach us at easit@uni-hildesheim.de.
The project EASIT has received funding
from the European Commission
under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships
for Higher Education programme,
grant agreement 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275.
The European Commission support
for the production of this publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made
of the information contained therein.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT project:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Università degli studi di Trieste
Universidade de Vigo
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim
SDI München
Dyslexiförbundet
Radio Televizija Slovenija
Zavod Risa
EASIT:
Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
Subtitled by: Jessica Heeger.