Easy to understand content
Silktide measures how difficult the writing on each page is to read, and reports pages that demand an advanced reading ability. Content should be understandable by someone with a lower secondary education, roughly nine years of schooling.
Why this matters
Around half of adults in most countries read below the level much web content is written at. Complex writing excludes people with dyslexia and other cognitive disabilities, people reading in a second language, and anyone skimming in a hurry - which is most visitors. Simpler writing is not dumbing down: studies consistently show that expert readers also prefer and better retain plain language.
This is success criterion 3.1.5 (Reading Level), a requirement. Even if AAA is not your target, readable content benefits every visitor.
How to fix it
- Shorten sentences. Long sentences are the biggest driver of a high reading level; aim for one idea per sentence.
- Prefer common words: "use" over "utilize", "help" over "facilitate".
- Break up dense paragraphs with headings, lists, and summaries.
- Where complex content is unavoidable - legal or scientific material, for example - WCAG allows you to instead provide a simpler summary or an alternative version, and to keep the original. If you have done so, the finding.
How Silktide tests this
- Determine each page's language - see how languages work - and apply the readability formula configured for that language, the same one used by the Readability check.
- Measure the page's main text, ignoring navigation, footers, and other repeated furniture. Pages with fewer than 100 words of content are skipped.
- Project the result onto a common scale of reading ability, the language levels.
- Report the page when its content requires CEFR level B2 or above, which corresponds to an of upper secondary or higher - above the lower secondary level WCAG sets as the ceiling.
- Show the measured and an excerpt of the analyzed text with each finding.
Troubleshooting
The page is mostly navigation or short snippets
Pages with fewer than 100 words of main content are not tested, so listing pages and link hubs are generally unaffected.
The formula seems wrong for my language
Readability formulas are language-specific. If pages are being measured in the wrong language, correct the page's declared language rather than the content - see how languages work.
Our content must be technical
WCAG accepts a simpler supplement rather than rewriting: an at-a-glance summary, a plain-language introduction, or an illustrated version. Add one, then approve the finding.