Section Two

What makes material hard to read and understand?

There are five areas to consider when analysing the readability of any material:
1. overall appearance - layout and design
2. organization of material
3. language
4. sentence length and structure
5. tone — how you speak to the reader

Although we will look at each of these areas separately, it's important to remember that they all work together to make material easy, or hard, to read. Try not to isolate any one element, but think about the total message the reader gets.

Any changes that you make to the text, even if it's only substituting "easy" words for "hard" ones, will be a step in the right direction. But try to extend your analysis of the problems, and the ways to solve them.

1. Appearance - Layout and Design

The overall appearance of your material is important. You have to catch your readers' attention, invite them to begin reading, and make it easy for them to continue.

Watch out for:		Why?
	too much information on a page	Dense text can discourage readers before they begin.
	heavy blocks of type	It gives two messages: • this is going to be hard! • this is going to be boring!