English

Toward Human-Centered Readability Evaluation

Computation and Language 2025-10-14 v1 Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Text simplification is essential for making public health information accessible to diverse populations, including those with limited health literacy. However, commonly used evaluation metrics in Natural Language Processing (NLP), such as BLEU, FKGL, and SARI, mainly capture surface-level features and fail to account for human-centered qualities like clarity, trustworthiness, tone, cultural relevance, and actionability. This limitation is particularly critical in high-stakes health contexts, where communication must be not only simple but also usable, respectful, and trustworthy. To address this gap, we propose the Human-Centered Readability Score (HCRS), a five-dimensional evaluation framework grounded in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and health communication research. HCRS integrates automatic measures with structured human feedback to capture the relational and contextual aspects of readability. We outline the framework, discuss its integration into participatory evaluation workflows, and present a protocol for empirical validation. This work aims to advance the evaluation of health text simplification beyond surface metrics, enabling NLP systems that align more closely with diverse users' needs, expectations, and lived experiences.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.10801,
  title  = {Toward Human-Centered Readability Evaluation},
  author = {Bahar İlgen and Georges Hattab},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.10801},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted to the 4th Workshop on Bridging Human-Computer Interaction and NLP (HCI+NLP) at EMNLP 2025, Suzhou, China

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:32:41.253Z