Health Communications

Improving Readability by Design

When developing patient education handouts, the focus is often on the writing. The challenge is to present health information—that is often complicated and unfamiliar—in a way that it is easy to understand. A number of recommendations, often referred to as “plain language" (among them using short, simple words, writing short sentences, and avoiding unnecessary words and jargon), have become proven methods for improving the readability of printed documents. A second set of recommendations, often separated from “readability” and referred to as “legibility,” can be easily overlooked.

This toolkit explores seven design elements that affect the readability of printed patient education materials and the key role they play in developing handouts that are both easy to read and easy to understand.

The toolkit is available as a serious of flash presentations with audio. Choose a topic below. Clicking on the screen starts the presentation. [Need help? Click here]