How to design work related information for low-literate employees?

A relatively high percentage of the workforce has lower literacy levels, which means that these employees have problems understanding written text. We have designed a brochure for a specific occupational group: landscape workers, people who work in urban and rural green spaces. This group bears a high risk of tick bites and, therefore, of contracting Lyme disease. The text and lay-out of the brochure are adapted according to the European Standards for making information easy to read and to understand. Four different versions of this brochure are designed and tested to investigate the effects of adding pictograms and a motivational agent to the adapted text. It was expected that these additions would be beneficial for low-literate landscape workers. The results of the study show that the participants appreciated the brochure, that they comprehended the brochure quite well and that they intended to perform the described protective measures. However, no positive effects of adding pictograms or a motivational agent are found. So, it seems to be more important to adapt information according to existing guidelines for easy to read text than to try to help low-literate readers by adding extra information.