WCAG 3.1.5 — Reading Level
When content requires advanced reading ability, AAA wants either prose written at a lower secondary education level, or a simpler version available. Compliance is mostly about respecting the audience's actual reading capacity.
What this requires
When text requires reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level after removal of proper names and titles, supplemental content or a version that does not require reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level is available. "Lower secondary" maps roughly to grades 7-9 in the US, or ages 11-14.
How AI coding tools fail this
When asked to write a privacy policy, a help article, or a healthcare explanation, AI tools default to a register that is grammatically complex and lexically dense. Sentences are long, voice is passive, and the vocabulary is professional-document standard. The content passes legal review and fails reading-level review.
The second pattern: technical docs that explain a concept once at expert level, with no "what this means" plain-language gloss. Users who aren't already expert in the domain bounce off.
The third: a single content surface for a mixed audience. The same page tries to serve compliance officers and end users; both walk away frustrated.
Edge cases
- Reading-level scoring (Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, automated readability index) approximates the criterion. None of them perfectly predict comprehension; they're heuristics.
- Domain-specific content can keep technical language as long as a plain-language equivalent is offered.
- Legal and regulatory text is often required to be precise — the remedy is a parallel plain-language version, not rewriting the legal text.
- Translation doesn't satisfy 3.1.5. Reading level is per language, not per phrase.
- "Add a simple version" can be a single paragraph at the top of a technical page. It doesn't need to be a separate page.
How Jeikin handles this
The scanner runs a readability metric across the page text and surfaces pages above the lower-secondary threshold. The dashboard records the score and asks the reviewer to confirm whether a plain- language version exists on or near the page. The metric is a leading indicator; the call is editorial.