The project brief was to create a take-home leaflet about the medication metoprolol. The leaflet would include relevant information for patients, such as conditions the medication addresses, dosage, side effects and precautions. It needed to be clear and rely on visual communication for patients with low English or medical literacy.
The solution Jessica came up with was a high-contrast and readable infographic with icons to help communicate complex meanings. In order to do so, she first condensed existing information about metoprolol into digestible points. The infographic’s primary typeface is Lato, as it is used widely in the healthcare sector due to its high readability; it also features a larger type size that was a tested on consumers for legibility. For the colour version of the leaflet, Jessica chose light blue as the main colour due to its connotations of friendliness and calm; this led to using the complementary colour orange as the secondary colour.
The majority of design development focused on streamlining and developing icons to be clearer and communicate greater depth in meaning, in addition to simplifying words and phrases while maintaining medical accuracy.
The leaflet also included a section for recording individual patients’ personalised dosage. Printing within the District Health Board is often in black and white to save costs, so Jessica also created an optimised and high contrast black and white version to be printed on an A4 page for easy distribution across pharmacies.
Here's what Jessica had to say about her experience — "The experience working with Good Health Design was truly enjoyable and a valuable learning curve in adapting design skills to the healthcare sector. The culture at Good Health Design was quite relaxed and warm, with a positive culture of feedback and open critique, and staff and summer students alike interested in about each others’ projects. Cassie was a truly helpful supervisor and mentor; she was consistently professional, and generous in providing critiques and help, while explaining her feedback in a way that was easy to understand."
