Our First Year
We have moved readability research and popular understanding beyond previous efforts, expanding the discussion to consider the impact of typography and the importance of individuation.
Growing Our Community
Our readability community has grown substantially during our first year and we are proud to welcome 3 members, 4 associates, 7 research partners, and over 110 community members.
Research Highlights
During our first year, The Readability Consortium actively pursued research related to Information Design for Individuals, Psychophysics of Variable Type, Readability in Education, and Readability Across Language and Culture. Across these research tracks, over 1,700 participants have been collected in collaboration with our members, associates, and research partners. Key findings include:
Information Design for Individuals
Key findings:
- Speed and comprehension have an inherent tradeoff function
- Format impacts speed/comprehension at the individual level, prediction is possible
- Effects extend to reading at-a-glance, sentences, and interlude-length reading
Psychophysics of Variable Type
Key Findings:
- TRC methods and stimuli are appropriate to test individuation in variable font axes
- Variable font axis manipulations impact speed/comprehension
- Narrower widths are associated with better comprehension
Readability in Education
Key Findings:
- Individuation of Format Readability generalizes to children
- TRC methods and stimuli are child-appropriate, and correlate with standardized tests
Readability Across Language and Culture
Key Findings:
- Initial feasibility of extending our present work to child and adult populations in India has been established
Dissemination Highlights
Publications:
The Readability Consortium has published a total of 12 academic articles, including publications in journals such as Taylor & Francis Online and ACM, CHI and Vision Sciences Society conference proceedings, and a collaborative readability research paper published on arXiv. Read all our publications.
The Readability Consortium founding member, Readability Matters, published over 85 blog articles covering diverse topics in readability.
Readability Newsletter:
Three issues of The Readability Press, a readability community newsletter, have been distributed. Sign up for The Readability Press.
Conferences and Events:
The Readability Consortium and broader readability community participated in 18 conference events, including presentations and workshops at AdobeMAX, SXSW EDU, Adobe Education Summit, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ProLiteracy, and Florida Literacy Conference. Find a complete list at the Readability Wiki.
Social Media:
The Readability Consortium has received social media attention and continues to garner interest across popular press outlets. Our social media channels received over 19,000 impressions. Follow us on social media: Instagram | LinkedIn | Mastodon | Twitter
Press Coverage:
We have received 15 popular press articles, including:
Resources
During our first year, our community of researchers built the Readability Research Toolbox, data repository, and passages and stimuli. Public resources include reading controls tester, adult and child reading passages, Word/Non-word glanceable stimuli, and datasets from our TOCHI, CHI, and HFES publications. Explore the complete list of TRC resources.
The Future of Readability Research
The Readability Consortium had a successful first year and we are excited to continue to move readability research forward in the year ahead. We, along with our partners and community, will continue to enhance readability for people of all ages and abilities through collaborative research, creating open-source tools, and developing big data around digital reading. Learn more and join us in enhancing readability for all.