Was amazed to find out that 'the average reading age of people in the UK is equivalent to an educated nine-year-old' and as such many sites on the net are too complex for readers. Is this due to the age range of the people using the net or are they just uneducated ? What does it say about our education system etc ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3641634.stm

Surely its best to have parents reading the sites and educating their kids on their health rather than kids reading stuff and making decisions that may be wrong ?

Originally posted by rtapper
Was amazed to find out that 'the average reading age of people in the UK is equivalent to an educated nine-year-old' and as such many sites on the net are too complex for readers. Is this due to the age range of the people using the net or are they just uneducated ? What does it say about our education system etc ?

I read it as average age overall rather than of people using the net - which is a scary statistic in itself :o Possibly even scarier is the idea that these websites should be re-written to make them easier to read rather than people educated so they can read to a reasonable level!

It's just another example of dumbing down.

Wait until the PC crowd get hold of this and start claiming that people with poor reading ability are actually disabled rather than, in most cases, bone idle - then you'll be compelled to have a 'Dimbos Here' version of a web site.

(I appreciate, by the way, that there is a significant minority of people who have problems with reading due to conditions like dyslexia, and I mean them no offence!!)

The Disability Rights Act already means that websites can be forced to be re-coded to ensure that access to all users. Writing pages that meet these technical requirements is an additional load on developers - I know, I've done it - but the idea of having varying reading ages supported on the site is ridiculous and isn't even worth considering as a bad joke.

Joe

Not before time too - its a tragedy that people get excluded due to the 'poor' efforts of web page designers - some pages are abysmal

Originally posted by Internetowl
Not before time too - its a tragedy that people get excluded due to the 'poor' efforts of web page designers - some pages are abysmal

Wouldn't argue - but it's a matter of degree. A company who've put together a Flash front ended, graphics intensive web site can probably afford to have a compliant site done. Someone who's put a site up as a hobby site - Sheffield Forum for example - might not find it easy to do all teh work needed to make a site compliant and so if sued under the DRA might just think 'screw this' and close the site.

Joe