Friday, May 22, 2009

Good readability where it is especially desired



The vulnerabilities of Microsoft Internet Explorer finally turned me off for good.

I installed Mozilla Firefox. The installation was quick and easy.

And I couldn't help but notice the good readability of the installation instructions. Curious, I ran a Flesch Reading Ease test:

Words per sentence: 11.1 (very short)
Characters per word: 4.8 (very short)
Flesch Reading Ease: 54.6 (as easy to read as Time magazine)

People who write for software companies rarely achieve scores in the 50s. My hat is off to Mozilla.

The Takeaway: Use short words and short sentences. You will greatly increase the readability of your copy.

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