Lowering the barriers: Accessible language and “leichte Sprache” on the German web”

The inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, stated that “the power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability is an essential aspect”. This statement, from the 1990s, rings even more true in 2023, as participation in society depends on being able to access the web for information, services and connections. In Germany, there is now a legal requirement for the public sector to provide content in “leichte Sprache” (eng: easy read) formats: language used in a simple manner to achieve broad accessibility. In the following article, Freya Hewett and Hadi Asghari outline their findings on the question: how much German-language web content is indeed available in “leichte Sprache”?