What makes writing more readable?

See What makes writing more readable? on pudding.cool

An interactive article which looks into what makes writing readable. It also has a toggle which switches activates plain language. Honestly, the non-plain language could do with some editing itself, but more people will find the plain language version easier to read.

The part where plain language expert Rebecca explains her process is rather helpful. After that, it looks into how algorithms can evaluate readability, but they’re all easily to cheat. The black box method here isn’t the best, but I’m optimistic that we can get a good black box to evaluate readability.

A big thing this article misses are technical things which make text readable like line height, font legibility and so on. Then again, you can only make so many technical improvements.

The article is a good read though the one thing I wonder is where is the point at which complex topics are being oversimplified? I guess specifying an intended audience can help with that.