How to make information accessible: a guide to producing easy read documents

Author:
CHANGE
Publisher:
Change
Publication year:
2009
Pagination:
46p.
Place of publication:
Leeds

This guidance produced by the National Equality Partnership and CHANGE, a national organisation led by disabled people, aims to make written information accessible to those who may find reading and writing difficult. Central to this is the belief that people who have learning difficulties have the expertise and knowledge to prepare such a document, and have done so with this guide. Here, accessible information means easy words and pictures, a style of language developed by people with learning disabilities over the past 15 years. Characterised by writing in short, simple sentences without jargon or hard words, clear and easy to understand pictures are used to support words, with an added value of helping those who do not have English as a first language. It takes time and money to create information to the easy words and pictures standard, so it is important to choose carefully which documents to use. It is suggested that some information could be made more accessible by the use of other, cheaper methods such as multimedia. The authors define jargon and hard words, detail laws such as the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and the 2006 Disability Equality Duty (DED) and advise on involving people with learning disabilities on how to improve accessibility and presentation of documents.  Presented throughout, in the style of easy words and pictures, practical advice is given on how to prepare a document with a checklist and examples of good practice concluding the text.

Subject terms:
information needs, learning disabilities, user participation, access to information;
Content type:
practice guidance
Location(s):
England
Link:
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