Design and Evaluation of an Automatic Text Simplification Prototype with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing Readers

The way in which a text is written can be a barrier for many people. Automatic text simplification is a natural language processing technology that, when mature, could be used to produce texts that are adapted to the specific needs of particular users. Most research in the area of automatic text simplification has dealt with the English language. In this article, we present results from the Simplext project, which is dedicated to automatic text simplification for Spanish. We present a modular system with dedicated procedures for syntactic and lexical simplification that are grounded on the analysis of a corpus manually simplified for people with special needs. We carried out an automatic evaluation of the system’s output, taking into account the interaction between three different modules dedicated to different simplification aspects. One evaluation is based on readability metrics for Spanish and shows that the system is able to reduce the lexical and syntactic complexity of the texts. We also show, by means of a human evaluation, that sentence meaning is preserved in most cases. Our results, even if our work represents the first automatic text simplification system for Spanish that addresses different linguistic aspects, are comparable to the state of the art in English Automatic Text Simplification.

The simplification of language – particularly with regard to administrative discourse – has long been a central concern within Italian linguistics. Over the past few decades, significant progress has been made, including the development of consolidated and widely accepted lists of linguistic features – both morphosyntactic and lexical – that influence textual simplicity and accessibility (cf. Fiorentino/Ganfi 2024). These advances contributed to the early creation of a readability index, the Gulpease index , in the 1980 s (cf. Lucisano/Piemontese 1988). Within this framework, the authors have developed a software for the automatic simplification of administrative texts, supported by QWEN3 (a large language model, LLM), entitled SEMPL-IT (cf. Russodivito et al. 2024; Fiorentino/Russodivito 2025; Ganfi/Russodivito 2025; Fiorentino et al. forthcoming; Fiorentino/Russodivito forthcoming). As part of this project, a corpus named ItaIst (Fiorentino et al. 2024b) The ItaIst corpus is publicly available on Hugging Face at the following link: https://huggingface.co/datasets/VerbACxSS/ItaIst (15 July 2025). was compiled and subjected to automatic simplification using the BASIC approach , resulting in a parallel corpus of simplified texts. This simplified corpus was then compared to the source corpus and evaluated in terms of improved readability and Semantic similarity (cf. Chandrasekaran et al. 2021), with the objective of validating the effectiveness of the simplification process. In this contribution, we introduce and validate a new methodology – the CHAIN approach – applied to a different corpus, ItaRegol (Fiorentino et al. 2024a). The ItaRegol corpus is publicly available on Hugging Face at the following link: https://huggingface.co/datasets/VerbACxSS/ItaRegol (15 July 2025). Although smaller in size than ItaIst , ItaRegol comprises rules and regulations, i. e., legally binding texts that create, modify, or extinguish subjective legal positions. Due to the legal nature of these texts, simplification must be carried out with caution to avoid altering their legal effects. This paper compares the two simplification approaches – BASIC and CHAIN – by evaluating the parameters adopted, assessing the quality of the simplified output, and drawing conclusions regarding the differing impact of these strategies in enhancing the readability of administrative versus regulatory texts.

In this paper, a Chinese automatic text simplification(ATS) method based on unsupervised learning was introduced. Automatic text simplification is a research field of natural language processing. In terms of Chinese texts, the reliance on the hand-made simplified corpus or dictionary is not applicable due to a large number of texts. Chinese is a diverse language, and numerous factors need to be taken into consideration. An automatic simplification method based on Chinese text and a readability formula based on linear regression was proposed in this paper. Based on our method, just input a set of Chinese sentences and the more comprehensible sentences can be obtained through syntactic simplification and lexical simplification. Through the automatic evaluation of the hand-made simplified corpus, the readability score of our system increased by 3.68 compared with that of the original text, and the SARI score reached 36.02.

Text simplification refers to the transformation of a specific source text into a target text aiming to increase understanding and readability for one or more specific audiences. This task demands large human efforts and specialized knowledge, which makes the usage of automated or semi-automated computational approaches appealing. The rise of deep learning as an unifying paradigm between seemingly different fields as image analysis, sound processing and natural language processing has considerably influenced the current state of the art approaches for automatic text simplification. Therefore, in this work, we focus on the study of deep learning based state of the art methods for automatic text simplification in the Spanish language. For this end, we first disentangle the different tasks which can be addressed in order to yield a simplified text in general. Later we review the latest deep learning-based approaches, along with the main datasets and performance metrics used in the field. We also describe approaches to deal with small datasets and technical words. Finally, we describe some lessons to build accurate automatic text simplification systems in Spanish, as in this language there is a noticeable shortage of work for text simplification.

In this paper, we present a corpus for use in automatic readability assessment and automatic text simplification for German, the first of its kind for this language. The corpus is compiled from web sources and consists of parallel as well as monolingual-only (simplified German) data amounting to approximately 6,200 documents (nearly 211,000 sentences). As a unique feature, the corpus contains information on text structure (e.g., paragraphs, lines), typography (e.g., font type, font style), and images (content, position, and dimensions). While the importance of considering such information in machine learning tasks involving simplified language, such as readability assessment, has repeatedly been stressed in the literature, we provide empirical evidence for its benefit. We also demonstrate the added value of leveraging monolingual-only data for automatic text simplification via machine translation through applying back-translation, a data augmentation technique.

The article at hand aggregates the work of our group in automatic processing of simplified German. We present four parallel (standard/simplified German) corpora compiled and curated by our group. We report on the creation of a gold standard of sentence alignments from the four sources for evaluating automatic alignment methods on this gold standard. We show that one of the alignment methods performs best on the majority of the data sources. We used two of our corpora as a basis for the first sentence-based neural machine translation (NMT) approach toward automatic simplification of German. In follow-up work, we extended our model to render it capable of explicitly operating on multiple levels of simplified German. We show that using source-side language level labels improves performance with regard to two evaluation metrics commonly applied to measuring the quality of automatic text simplification.

The existing Human Machine Interface (HMI) for the Army’s Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) represents a 1980s, windows-based technology which is neither intuitive nor scalable for operators. It creates high levels of cognitive load on the operators, and its closed architecture limits its adaptability for UAS missions as technologies evolve. This research presents a methodology for creating and evaluating next generation HMI designs while leveraging GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and TELLUS flight simulation software in the creation of five HMI prototype designs. A proof of concept approach in the evaluation of prototypes was performed with five UAS Aircraft Operators (15W MOS) and five USMA cadets; examination of the impact of age and experience on the perceived value of new HMI designs will influence recommendations on full experimental design. The value-focused approach to design presented in this paper and prototype designs provide a basis for full prototype development and experimental testing through PM UAS with the Intelligence and Maneuver Centers of Excellence. Results include a trade space and sensitivity analysis towards development of improved HMI designs. The methodology and high performing prototypes for HMI design will be integrated by the PM UAS CSI Project Office for further development and full experimental analysis.

Design of micro-hammers for ultrasonic source applications

In this work, we investigate the possibility of using fully automatic text simplification system on the English source in machine translation (MT) for improving its translation into an under-resourced language. We use the state-of-the-art automatic text simplification (ATS) system for lexically and syntactically simplifying source sentences, which are then translated with two state-of-the-art English-to-Serbian MT systems, the phrase-based MT (PBMT) and the neural MT (NMT). We explore three different scenarios for using the ATS in MT: (1) using the raw output of the ATS; (2) automatically filtering out the sentences with low grammaticality and meaning preservation scores; and (3) performing a minimal manual correction of the ATS output. Our results show improvement in fluency of the translation regardless of the chosen scenario, and difference in success of the three scenarios depending on the MT approach used (PBMT or NMT) with regards to improving translation fluency and post-editing effort.

Children with hearing loss are children who have difficulty learning because they have limited language and communication. This limitation hinders them when they study. They need special methods, special media, and special teachers in learning. SLB B karnnamanohara students have difficulty in learning Muslim prayers (sholat and daily prayers). Almost all grade 2 elementary students cannot pronounce Muslim prayers. They need learning resources that are interesting and according to their needs. Muslim prayer guide mobile application that matches the characteristics of children with special needs. The aim of this study wasto build a multimedia mobile application for Muslim prayer guides for children with hearing loss. This application is called M- Shollu.. The method in this study consists of eight stages: data collection, data analysis, create storyboard, prototype design, prototype evaluation, create multimedia, multimedia evaluation, and user experience evaluation. This research has succeeded in designing and developing a multimedia mobile application for Muslim prayer guides for children with hearing loss (M-Sholuu). The evaluation was carried out by multimedia experts and SLB teachers from Carnamanara. The results of M-Sholuu's evaluation were 4.42, out of 5. The multimedia evaluation results carried out by multimedia experts were 4.17 on a scale of 5. The results of multimedia evaluations by Karnnamanohara SLBB teachers were 4.25 on a scale of 5. The user experience evaluation results were 4 , 52 on a scale of 5.

The Decision Support System (DSS) is a computer-based information system that generates various alternative decisions to assist in addressing structured and unstructured problems. At STMIK Syaikh Zainuddin NW Anjani, the selection of study programs is still done manually, where prospective students are directly asked to choose which study program they wish to enter without any data processing based on their abilities and skills first. This approach can have negative consequences, as once they begin their studies in the chosen program, they may struggle to keep up due to misalignment with their skills, interests, and abilities, leading many to regret their choice and even decide to switch programs or transfer to another university; some may even attend less frequently. Therefore, there is a need for a system/application that can provide recommendations for study programs that align with their talents, interests, and capabilities. The Decision Support System for Selecting Study Programs for New Students at STMIK Syaikh Zainuddin NW Anjani uses the Profile Matching Method and the Prototype Method for software development, which begins with requirements gathering, prototype design, prototype evaluation, system coding, system testing, system evaluation, and system implementation. This decision support system calculates the exam scores taken by new students and successfully provides suitable recommendations based on their exam results. This application can also directly print the results of the calculations and recommendations for study programs for new students; they can also directly print the results of their tests.

Children with hearing loss are children who experience learning difficulties. They have limited vocabulary and language in communication that hampers the learning process. They need a special way of learning and are usually educated in special schools. Level 2 elementary students at SLB B Karnnamanohara have difficulty learning prayer and daily prayer. Almost all elementary level 2 students cannot pronounce daily prayers and prayers. They need interesting learning resources and according to their characteristics. This study aims to design multimedia mobile application of prayer and daily prayers guides for children with hearing loss. The research method consists of five stages: data collection, data analysis, storyboard making, prototype design, and prototype evaluation. This research has been designed to multimedia mobile applications of prayer and prayers guides for children hearing impairments according to the needs of users who have different characteristics with users in general. The results showed that the prototype design of the multimedia mobile application prayer and prayer daily guides for children with hearing loss had met the needs of users with evaluation values of 4.42 from a scale of 5.

Designing a television (TV) application for older adults presents specific challenges, especially when the issue is an application that aims to support volunteer activities which will benefit older adults. This article describes the design process and evaluation of an interactive high visual-fidelity prototype of an application for a TV set-top box, which aims to allow older adults to request, in a simple and quick way, help from a group of volunteers, in specific tasks such as small household maintenance. Concerning the user interface design, a set of specific guidelines were considered and applied in the development of a high visual-fidelity prototype. The result of this process was later evaluated in heuristic evaluation sessions and user testing. The former were supported by a list of heuristics, drawn from other lists used in recent research and adapted to the context of the study. The latter were conducted with potential users that tried to accomplish some tasks on the prototype. In a context in which several studies show that television is a highly privileged platform to provide information to the older adults population due to its high degree of use in this group, this project may present important contributions to better understand some of the challenges that are associated with the design and early evaluation of TV applications whose target audience is older adults and some good practices that should be followed to achieve a product that is easy and enjoyable for this public to use.

This paper presents the design, development and initial evaluation of an intelligent virtual museum prototype based on a new type of Cyber-Physical-Social Eco-System (CPSeS) framework aiming to merge the real with virtual worlds interchangeably using AI, XR and Robots. Whereas virtual environments have become prominent tools in many domains, offering shared and interactive virtual worlds, the proposed prototype incorporates multi-user and interactive functionalities together with a new agent, namely, a physical robot and its digital twin. The physical robot is located and acts in a real environment whilst its avatar (further referred to as its digital twin) lives in the virtual world. The users are able to see and explore both worlds simultaneously through the ‘eyes’ of the robot. Together with multi-user infrastructure and communication capabilities, the environment also involves additional agents guiding the user in the virtual world, and an educational game, aiming at developing a CPSeS capable of blending the real with digital worlds, and to be influenced by its users, real and artificial agents and elements. The user-based qualitative evaluation of the proposed system was favourable but also constructive providing the research team with valuable observations on its performance.

Text simplification, defined narrowly, is the process of reducing the linguistic complexity of a text, while still retaining the original information and meaning. More broadly, text simplification encompasses other operations; for example, conceptual simplification to simplify content as well as form, elaborative modification, where redundancy and explicitness are used to emphasise key points, and text summarisation to omit peripheral or inappropriate information. There is substantial evidence that manual text simplification is an effective intervention for many readers, but automatic simplification has only recently become an established research field. There have been several recent papers on the topic, however, which bring to the table a multitude of methodologies, each with their strengths and weaknesses. The goal of this paper is to summarise the large interdisciplinary body of work on text simplification and highlight the most promising research directions to move the field forward.