Readability

Readability is the measure of how easy or difficult it is to understand a piece of text. Different elements of writing can contribute to readability. These include things like word choice, sentence length, and the average number of syllables per word.

GovHub readability is calculated by the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test. This test uses the length of sentences and words to determine the grade level associated with the readability of a page. You should aim for a middle school (6-8 grade) readability level for your content.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability scorecard

To help increase your website’s readability, keep the following in mind when writing content:

• Be concise

• Use bulleted lists and number lists for easier scanning

• Use highlighted keywords, like hyperlinks

• Use meaningful subheadings

• Use the inverted pyramid style

In some cases, the length of text on a page and the use of elements like lists and tables make it hard for the test to identify content on a page. When this happens, the test will generate a result of “no readability score.”