The following guidelines will help you create aphasia-friendly content, whether it's for print or digital , to ensure it's easy to read for people with aphasia. If you have any questions about creating aphasia-friendly content please contact Caitlin Longman in the Accessibility Team for advice.
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Try to reduce the text as much as possible.
Check your reading level, and aim for a grade 6 or lower. If you find your reading level is too high try to reduce your sentence length or consider using alternative words for higher reading words. For example, discussion could be changed to talk.
Thinking about spacing to break up different topics.
Use Arial font (our brand standard for emails) size 14.
Consider using bold text to highlight key information. Or if writing to people with aphasia embolden keywords in all sentences. Remember to not bold connecting words like ‘and’, ‘to’ or ‘the’. If you have a chunk of information do not bold the same words again and again, for example ‘Stroke Association’. Bold them once and then embolden the additional information it applies to.
Write contractions out in full. For example: don’t becomes do not.
Avoid the use of jargon or abbreviations. There will be times when these will be needed, and it would help to explain what the terms mean. For example, thrombectomy is a medical procedure…
I would highly recommend not putting pictures in an email unless you are using a formatted template. Pictures can disrupt the text and can make reading the email on a phone challenging.
Ensure that all links are clear and that readers know they need to click on the link to access more information.
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