EASIT, Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training.
Hi! This is Unit 2, Easy-to-understand (E2U)
Element 2: Legislation, standards and guidelines
Video lecture on standards and guidelines.
I am Ester Hedberg, from the Swedish National Association for Dyslexia.
In this video lecture, I will talk about international standards,
and guidelines on easy-to-understand.
In Unit 1, Element 4, you can learn more about standards on media accessibility.
I will focus on two ongoing projects within ISO.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
These standards are expected to be published in a few years:
a. Guidance on making written text easy to read and understand
b. Plain language - Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines
I will also talk about two existing guidelines:
c. Information for all,
European standards for making information easy to read and understand,
from Inclusion Europe.
d. Guidelines for easy-to-read materials from IFLA,
International Federation of Library Association and Institutions.
Standards are documented and agreed descriptions of how products,
services and processes should work to satisfy the needs of users.
You will find standards for computer keyboards, light bulbs,
hexagon screws and many other things.
Even languages are standardized.
Standards are normally not mandatory,
but some of them get implemented or referred to in laws,
and might be something you must comply with.
A standard can be used as a guideline.
But a guideline is not necessarily a standard.
A standard is developed by a standardization organization.
It’s a result of a process of compromises and agreements,
among stakeholders and experts from different areas.
Like producers, consumers and researchers.
There are different organizations that create standards.
I already mentioned ISO.
You are probably also familiar with ITU.
International Telecommunication Union.
And the W3C, World Wide Web Consortium.
In Europe we have ETSI,
European Telecommunications Standard Institute,
and CEN, European Committee for Standardization.
In your country you will find national organizations for standardization.
There are no published global standards on Easy language.
But ISO is working on this topic.
One project addresses E2U texts and another Plain Language.
First, ISO/IEC WD 23859:
Guidance on making written text easy to read and understand.
Second, ISO/WD 24495:
Plain language — Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines
“WD” stands for Working Draft.
The ISO/IEC WD 23859,
Guidance on making written text easy to read and understand,
focuses on user interfaces.
It will provide recommendations on how to create,
adapt, validate and procure written easy text,
for various types of content, environments and formats,
for diverse users.
That includes texts in audio format and in different hybrid access services,
like easy subtitles and easy audio description.
The aim of the validation is to make sure that the content,
is easy to read and understand for the target group.
It is important that the end users are involved in the validation process.
This standard will not provide language-specific guidance.
ISO/WD 24495 on plain language,
will provide support for writers to produce any document in plain language.
The International Plain Language Federation,
has been working to create this universal multi-language standard
for several years.
The standard will build on the definition of plain language,
that the federation created a few years ago:
“A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design,
are so clear that the intended audience can easily find what they need
understand what they find, and use that information.”
In Europe, a European guideline from 2009 called:
“Information for all – European standard,
for making information easy to read and understand”
is often recommended to writers who want to write easy-to-read content.
These guidelines were created by Inclusion Europe,
which consists of 78 European organizations,
for people with intellectual disabilities
The guidelines were produced in the project:
“Pathways to adult education for people with intellectual disabilities”.
The document contains guidelines on how to create,
easy-to-understand information for the following types of content:
General, written, electronic, video and audio.
International Federation of Library Association and Institutions,
published in 2010 “Guidelines for easy-to-read materials” .
While the guidelines from Inclusion Europe target people with intellectual disabilities,
the guidelines from IFLA have a broader target group,
and include people with reading difficulties that have different causes.
The guidelines from IFLA have three main purposes.
I quote:
First, "To describe the nature and needs for easy-to-read publications"
Second, "To identify the main target groups for these publications"
Third, "To offer suggestions to publishers of easy-to-read materials,
and those organizations and agencies that serve persons with reading disabilities.”
The ISO standards are not published.
But I suggest that you read the guidelines from Inclusion Europe and IFLA.
Both of them are available free of charge on their webpages.
“Information for all” is also available in different languages.
I also suggest that you read: "Do not write for us without us,
Involving people with intellectual disabilities in the writing of texts,
that are easy to read and understand.
That is also from Inclusion Europe.
This video lecture was prepared by Ester Hedberg,
from the Swedish National Association for Dyslexia.
You can reach me at ester.hedberg@dyslexi.org
Thank you.
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 Attributtion,
ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT Project: University UAB, Barcelona,
Trieste University, Vigo University,
Hildesheim University, University SDI, München,
Swedish National Association for Dyslexia,
Slovenia Public Service RTV, RISA Institute, Slovenia
EASIT, Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training