FriendlyReader and TeCST are text simplification tools developed at Linköping University, using an API service at the university called SAPIS. Both tools are web services that run in the browser for users. To improve the services an implementation of state-transition tracking was chosen as a way to both improve the website by enabling the user to undo actions, but also enable the client to cache information which lowers the amount of requests required to SAPIS. Two libraries, called MobX and Redux, where compared to find the one which worked best for FriendlyReader and TeCST. The main difference between MobX and Redux is the programming paradigms, MobX is object-oriented while Redux is functional. In the end MobX was chosen due to the object-oriented nature of the library which is more familiar for beginners while also requiring less code to achieve similar results. MobX lacks native support to keep track of previous state transitions which is required to be able to go back to a previous state. Using MobX a new library called GlobalStore was created to solve this problem. An implementation example for synonyms was produced as a proof of concept for FriendlyReader.

Information is everywhere in today’s society and it is important that everyone can access it. A tool called Friendlyreader can help people with reading and writing difficulties change text. With Friendlyreaderthey can summarise text, change its visual appearance, and learn the text complexity among other things. The aim of this study is to investigate this tool by evaluating current accessibility and usability problemsthrough a heuristic evaluation to redesign the tool and then to conduct between-subject usability testingto see what the users think of the changes compared to the original. The results of these evaluation methods were that there were some usability and accessibility problems, but the users thought otherwise. Both the original version and the redesigned version received high scores, but the redesigned version wasbetter in some aspects such as aesthetics and button design. The scope of the study was too small todraw any definite conclusions and more investigation is needed.

In modern society where time is of essence and almost everything is accessible with a click of a button, it is important that the information we take in is relevant, which is why automatized text summaries must contain necessary information and is understandable for the reader. This study aims to investigate if extracted and highlighted automatic text summaries are as comprehensive as the original text and the differences between extracted summary and highlight summary. The research will study the eyes movement during reading different types of texts, mainly focusing on fixation and saccades. The study found that readers tend to fixate more when reading summaries than an original text, which in turn lead to a longer time to read the text. For comprehensiveness there was no greater difference found between the summaries and the original text.