Better Readability,
the Quick Summary!
In a fun new video, Dr. Ben D. Sawyer sums up his readability research in 60 seconds. The video is part of a series produced by the University of Central Florida aiming to condense complex research into bite-sized summaries, allowing listeners to see how and why their faculty plans to improve our world.
My research is re-engineering the written word to make it work better for the next 5,000 years.
Ben D. Sawyer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Central Florida
Director, The Readability Consortium
The Readability Consortium (Adobe, Readability Matters, Google, Monotype, and over 200 community stakeholders) is working on better ways to deliver billions of words to hundreds of millions of readers every day.
Dr. Sawyer notes, “We are discovering that format, font, and spacing can be as important as content.” With vision science, typography, big data, and artificial intelligence, The Readability Consortium is helping groups from the classroom to the operating room. All of us have too much to read. Ben imagines a future where as we read, our devices look back at us and help us. He imagines that all our digital devices could know what we need, and our text could change format and content to allow us to move faster, understand more, and enjoy the process.
Watch the video and read the UCF story with additional details about the research here: https://www.ucf.edu/news/research-in-60-seconds-using-tech-to-improve-readability/.
About Ben D. Sawyer, Ph.D.: Dr. Ben D. Sawyer is an applied neuroscientist and human factors engineer fascinated by information exchange between human and machine. Brainwaves, biosignals, and mathematical theory help Dr. Sawyer and his teams to design the models and algorithms that power trustworthy machines. Visit Ben’s website here.
About The Readability Consortium: Formed in 2022 by Adobe, the University of Central Florida, Readability Matters and Google, The Readability Consortium’s core mission is to bring digital readability to all. The Readability Consortium believes reading is a fundamental right. A more readable document improves the ability of diverse readers to access information. Engaging with a worldwide community of over 200 stakeholders from diverse disciplines,TRC builds a growing scientific understanding of readability through round-table investigation. With their community, they explore how digital reading devices can diagnose reader needs, then deliver format and content to enhance, rather than impede, individual reader performance.
