Writing support tools for making text understandable: a socio-technical perspective on stakeholder-centered writing

Abstract Designing writing support tools is challenging because writing is a complex, open-ended task with different target groups. This paper explores how software can help writers make texts more understandable for people with cognitive impairments. For this, we observed how 18 German specialists for easy and plain language made text more understandable for people with cognitive impairments, both with and without a writing support tool. We (1) present common tasks, like identifying the key message of a text, (2) explore the writers’ perception of the support tool, and (3) identify support that is missing, e.g., synonym suggestions, explanations, and personalization. We find that making text more understandable can be conceptualized as stakeholder-centered text summarization. We describe how HCI practitioners can provide non-linear writing support for such writing tasks and provide design guidelines. Based on our findings, we reframe writing support systems as socio-technical systems with different stakeholders.