About

Readability can be defined as, “the ease of understanding or comprehension due to the style of writing.” This depends on a number of factors including how legible the document is; the readers interest and motivation in the information; and the complexity of the words and sentences within the document in relation to the reading ability of the reader.

This can be done by using readability formulas. There are well over twenty such formulas.  The text provided has been analysed by three tests commonly used in Health related research. The Flesch reading ease test, the Flesch-Kincaid test and the Gunning fog test.

The graphs below represent the data collected in the first round of the research. A graph is presented representing each individual readability formulae used. Each hospital was ranked for each test and then a final graph was produced showing the hospitals according to their average rank.

The colour tells your the direction of the score. Graphs with green at the bottom and red at the top means low scores are better. Graphs with green at the top and red at the bottom means high scores are better. Click on any of the graphs for a more detailed view.

Please note that readability is based on an approximation. It estimates the education grade that allows 50% of the population to read. Although the tests allow useful comparison of documents they are not without criticism and a key factor is that they do not measure comprehension.