Reading age
Plain English, measured
We score our wording with the Flesch-Kincaid formula, turned into a UK reading age.
- App wording must have a reading age of 11 or under, the NHS target. Anything harder fails a test that has to pass before any change can go in.
- Consent and privacy wording can go up to 14, which the NHS accepts where wording is hard to make simpler. It is tested the same way.
- A short, named list of consent and privacy wording has a limit of its own for each item, so none of it can get harder.
- Articles in our resources section are for parents looking into a topic. Their limit is 19, tested the same way.
- The rest of the website aims for 14. We measure and report it, but it cannot stop a change.
Reading age in the app, area by area
This table shows the reading age of each part of the app, measured from the 68 screens our tests show. Short labels and buttons are too short to score, so we leave them out. It is a report only: nothing fails when a number goes up. It goes with 3.1.5 Reading Level on the Beyond AA page.
For comparison, the NHS aims for a reading age of 9 to 11 in what it writes for the public.
| Area | Screens | Reading age | Hardest screen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signing in | 8 1 too short to score | 13 | claim, a pilot invitation, the consent form, age 14 |
| Home and getting started | 3 1 too short to score | 7 | welcome, the first-run tour, age 8 |
| The profiler questions | 18 3 too short to score | 10 | profiler/overview, priority-areas (dimensions-overview), age 20 |
| The profile and report | 5 | 13 | profile, the next-steps tab, age 15 |
| Chat | 2 | 9 | chat, a titled thread, age 9 |
| Sharing and consent | 4 | 14 | sharing, the pilot consent screen, age 15 |
| Settings and your data | 7 | 7 | reminders/stop, the question, age 9 |
| Help and learning | 8 | 11 | programmes, the index, age 16 |
| School and clinic staff | 13 2 too short to score | 9 | the meeting sheet, populated, age 10 |