Easy Read is Hard—But It Gets Easier When You Don’t Do It Alone
We recently read the brilliant Design in Government blog post “Easy read is hard to get right”, and we honestly couldn’t agree more.
At IC Works, we’ve been working in the Easy Read space for many years and live these challenges daily. Seeing a national team not just acknowledge the complexity of Easy Read—but also roll up their sleeves and test real-world content with users—is exactly the kind of leadership we love to see.
Massive credit to the UK Health Security Agency's Inclusive Design group team for such thoughtful, transparent, and user-focused work.
They said it best themselves: “Don’t let the name fool you. Easy read content is really tricky.” (but, as a commenter points out, don’t let that put you off wanting to get it done!)
What They Got Exactly Right
Let’s just pause for a moment to appreciate some of the highlights:
Testing with real users (not just assumptions)
Noticing that some users find images helpful, while others find them patronising
Realising that “just simplifying” is never enough
Calling out how Easy Read often ends up as an afterthought, crammed into PDF format at the last minute
All of these are crucial insights. If more teams building public-facing services took the time to listen to this carefully, accessibility across the board would be much better.
And we especially loved the honesty of this line:
“What’s called easy read content is massively inconsistent.”
Absolutely. It is. And the stakes are too high for that inconsistency to continue.
What We’d Add: Do It With People, Not Just For People
If there’s one thing we’ve learned at IC Works, it’s this:
You can’t make truly accessible Easy Read content without the people it’s meant for.
The article discusses how content teams sometimes try to “send it off to be made into an easy read document.” We get why that happens. It’s practical. It’s efficient. But here’s the thing:
Easy Read isn’t a product you order—it’s a process you share
That’s why at IC Works, we don’t just check our Easy Read drafts with people who use them—we build the documents with them, in real-time. Our co-production workshops bring together our staff, our clients, and most importantly, our panel of adults with lived experience of learning disabilities, autism, or communication difficulties.
Every sentence is read aloud by someone who uses Easy Read. The panel discusses every image before it goes in. If something’s unclear or feels wrong, we rewrite it together.
We don’t do this just to be thorough—we do it because it’s the only way we’ve found to make Easy Read that actually works.
And you know what? When you bring people into the process like this, it’s not just easier—it’s better. You get sharper, clearer, more respectful documents. You avoid the trap of infantilising your audience. And you discover the joy of true collaboration.
On PDFs, Choices, and Being Seen
The UKHSA team made another really important point:
“Users generally missed links on the homepage to the easy read content.”
This happens all the time. Easy Read is too often tucked away in footers or folders, treated like an extra rather than a standard.
We agree: Easy Read should sit alongside mainstream content—not somewhere off the side like a forgotten appendix. People who use Easy Read deserve to feel like the content is for them, not an afterthought.
And while we share the frustrations about PDF formatting, we also think the real issue is upstream. If Easy Read is planned early, co-designed thoughtfully, and considered part of the main user journey, then the format becomes a creative decision, not a constraint.
A Quick Word on Images
We couldn’t help but cheer when the team said that some users found the images patronising. That’s a reality we hear in our workshops all the time.
There’s this common idea that Easy Read must always use cartoon-style pictures, often aimed at children. But Easy Read is for adults. And adults deserve materials that treat them with dignity.
Our panel members constantly steer us toward realistic, non-patronising imagery that supports meaning without condescension. And they’re right every time.
Let’s Keep Talking—and Keep Doing
Because in the end, we all want the same thing:
Information that everyone can understand
Let’s keep making that happen—together.