Decentralised News · Agentic Finance · Decision research
By Heath Muchena · Source review 2026-11-11 · Instrument version 1.0.0
What Matters
A publisher can place a disclosure on the page without knowing whether readers understand it. Test the relationship, the links it covers and what it says about editorial judgement. DN’s Disclosure-Comprehension Test Pack records separate answers and uncertainty. It assesses understanding in a defined context; it does not certify advertising compliance or editorial independence.
A reader sees a product recommendation, a source citation and a commercial link in the same article. The publisher knows which relationship applies to each element. The reader may not. A label that is familiar to an affiliate manager can be ambiguous to someone making a purchase.
The useful question is therefore observable: after encountering the page, can a reader explain the commercial relationship accurately? That question belongs alongside the actual disclosure requirements for the relevant jurisdiction. A comprehension study supplies evidence about reader understanding, not a substitute for those requirements.
DN Evidence Block
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-11 · Evidence type: Official US and UK advertising guidance, together with a proposed DN reader-study protocol.
Scope: Understanding of affiliate relationships on a specified page and device. US and UK guidance are examples with their own scope, not universal rules.
- The US FTC’s endorsement guidance discusses clear, conspicuous disclosure of material connections and explains why a label such as “affiliate link” may not adequately communicate the payment relationship to readers.
- The UK ASA’s affiliate-marketing advice addresses recognisability of advertising and the scope of affiliate content. Applying the rules to a specific publication requires the relevant facts and jurisdiction.
Not established by this work: DN has not conducted a reader study or ranked disclosure wording. All participant counts below are synthetic.
Original DN instrument · version 1.0.0
DN Disclosure-Comprehension Test Pack
Summarise three questions from one consented reader study. Enter complete questionnaires only; report partial responses separately. These are comprehension measures, not compliance scores.
Enter your assumptions or load a labelled example. Required blank numbers stay missing; unknown evidence remains unknown. Use nonpersonal labels only. This instrument makes no network requests and uses no persistent browser storage.
Use your own inputs
No current result. Complete inputs or load an illustrative example.
The tool does not validate participant responses, coding, jurisdictional obligations, editorial independence or causal effects. Small or selected samples do not establish general reader comprehension.
1. Can readers explain who may be paid?
Show the page in a realistic reading task and ask an open question about any commercial relationship they noticed. Avoid opening with “Did you see the affiliate disclosure?” because that tells the participant what to look for.
Define the correct answer from the actual arrangement. A commission on a qualifying purchase, a fixed sponsorship payment and a free review sample are different relationships. Do not test a generic statement if the page contains a more specific connection.
Separate recognition from understanding. A reader may remember seeing a disclosure but believe it means the merchant pays for every click, that the reader pays an added fee or that the recommendation was purchased. Record the explanation, then apply a predefined coding rule.
Keep “unsure” as an available answer. Forcing a guess can make comprehension look higher than it is. Use the participant’s own words before presenting any multiple-choice follow-up; the follow-up itself can teach the relationship.
Consent and a bounded research purpose are part of a usable study. Collect the information needed to interpret the task, such as device type or familiarity with affiliate marketing, without gathering unrelated personal details.
2. Can readers identify which links the disclosure covers?
A page may contain a primary source, an ordinary reference and an affiliate recommendation. Ask the participant to identify the relevant links after the reading task. Do not assume that a general footer note makes their scope clear.
Record both directions of error. A reader can miss a commercial link or believe that every citation is paid. The second error also matters: it can make a documented editorial finding appear to be an advertisement. The remedy should reflect which misunderstanding the study actually found.
3. Do readers understand what disclosure establishes about the finding?
A disclosed commission establishes a commercial connection. It does not, by itself, prove that a finding was purchased or that the editorial process is independent. Ask what additional evidence the reader would need to assess the review method.
Define this boundary carefully in the coding guide. The correct conclusion is not that affiliate content is automatically independent, and not that every affiliate relationship buys a favourable verdict. A transparent publisher should explain its evidence and selection method as well as the commercial connection.
For mixed pages, preserve a simple map of each link’s role. That lets the researcher compare the reader’s interpretation with the actual arrangement instead of treating all links as interchangeable.
4. Does the relationship remain clear on the actual device?
Evaluate the page as rendered on the relevant screen and interaction path. A disclosure that appears before a recommendation on one layout may be distant from it on another. Record the actual viewport and the task, rather than testing only a designer’s desktop screenshot.
Record the encounter: preserve the viewport, text size and path to the recommendation. Ask the same comprehension questions after the realistic reading task. A successful desktop inspection does not establish that the mobile reader saw or understood the same relationship.
5. Does the commercial context survive excerpts and reuse?
A preview, social post, newsletter or machine-generated summary can carry the recommendation without the original disclosure context. Inspect the actual permitted distribution route. The remedy may require a disclosure appropriate to the excerpt, not a longer note on the source page.
Record the distribution boundary: inspect the excerpt a reader actually receives, including the link and surrounding text. Do not assume the full article’s disclosure travels with a quote, preview or automated summary. Attribute a result to that tested representation.
6. What does the reader understand at the decision point?
Ask about the relationship after the participant has made the simulated comparison or identified the product they would investigate. This tests whether the disclosure remains part of the decision context.
Do not convert a simulated choice into a real purchase or send a participant through an unnecessary checkout. The study can observe understanding without requiring spending. If genuine transaction behaviour is part of a separate project, it needs its own consent and research design.
These six tests are proposed checks. They do not establish that a particular wording, placement or device causes misunderstanding. A controlled comparison is needed to assess a specific change.
Methodology, limitations and corrections
DN constructed six proposed comprehension checks from the practical distinctions in affiliate relationships and official disclosure guidance. No wording was tested with readers for this article. The twenty-person example is synthetic. A real study should record consent, sampling, task, rendered page, commercial facts, neutral questions, coding rules, exclusions and uncertainty. Keep US and UK guidance within its respective scope and seek the appropriate interpretation for the publication’s actual jurisdiction and arrangement.
Use the DN Disclosure-Comprehension Test Pack
The calculator reports three dimensions separately: compensation understood, link scope understood and the evidence boundary understood. Each uses the number of complete questionnaires as its denominator. An “unsure” response is a completed answer, not a correct answer.
In a synthetic group of twenty complete responses, sixteen explain the compensation relationship correctly, ten identify the link scope and twelve understand what the disclosure does and does not establish about editorial judgement. The corresponding rates are 80%, 50% and 60%. Averaging them would hide the specific scope problem.
For each question, enter correct and unsure counts. Remaining responses are treated as incorrect under the study’s coding rule. The tool checks that correct plus unsure does not exceed the number of complete questionnaires. The same person can answer different questions correctly, so the counts across questions must not be added together.
Keep partial questionnaires, exclusions and withdrawals in a separate study log. A denominator of complete responses is useful for this small tool, but it can conceal selection effects if people who struggled were disproportionately excluded. Report those counts alongside any result.
The instrument does not provide a legal pass mark, a minimum acceptable comprehension percentage or a statistical significance claim. Those decisions depend on the study design, the actual disclosure obligations and the consequence of misunderstanding.
Change one thing and inspect the misunderstanding it fixes
Use the first study to identify a specific ambiguity. If readers do not understand the payment relationship, test clearer wording. If they misidentify the covered links, test scope and placement. If an excerpt drops the context, address the distribution path.
For a comparison, keep the article, products and task constant while changing the intended disclosure feature. Allocate comparable participants to each version and document the assignment. Showing one person several versions can create learning effects: later answers may reflect what the earlier version taught them.
Have a second reviewer inspect a sample of the coding, especially open-ended responses. Preserve disagreements instead of silently stretching the definition of “correct.” A favourable comprehension result should be reproducible from the responses and the published coding rule.
Recheck material changes to the page and its commercial relationships. A disclosure that accurately described one commission arrangement may no longer explain a sponsorship or a different link path. The maintained record should include the relationship, wording, placement, device, review date and unresolved questions.
For DN, this is also an editorial discipline. A commercial next step should be recognisable as commercial, while the source record should show why the finding stands. Both can be evaluated without assuming that disclosure alone settles the reader’s trust decision.
For corrections, identify the claim, source and date when contacting Decentralised News. A new record-creation timestamp does not refresh its underlying evidence.
Change log: version1.0.0, 2026-11-11. Initial documentation review, original instrument and labelled examples.
Frequently asked questions
Does a disclosure prove the editorial conclusion was paid for?
No. It identifies a commercial connection. The review method and actual arrangement provide the evidence needed to assess how the editorial conclusion was reached.
Does a high comprehension rate establish legal compliance?
No. Reader understanding is one empirical question. The applicable disclosure obligations and facts require a separate assessment.
Can we test the label by asking whether readers noticed it?
That measures recognition and can prime the participant. Begin with neutral questions about the relationship and link scope, then record uncertainty and explanations.
Primary sources
- FTC’s Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking. US guidance on clear disclosure of affiliate and other material relationships. Reviewed 2026-11-11.
- ASA: Affiliate marketing. UK advertising advice on recognisability and affiliate-content scope. Reviewed 2026-11-11.
Turn the finding into a decision
Research Desk: Commission a bounded disclosure-comprehension study for one page and one audience. Agree the actual commercial relationships, consent process, devices and coding rules. The deliverable is a response record and a proposed wording or placement test. DN sells research services and uses affiliate relationships; those interests should remain visible when commissioning this work. The study is not a legal compliance certificate.
Related DN research
Disclosure: Analysis and instrument results are editorial. Where labelled affiliate links appear, DN may receive compensation when you sign up or buy through them. Commercial relationships do not determine findings. No tested integration or guaranteed outcome is implied.
