10 Best Practice Tips To Design Helpful Patient Information Materials
Next time you are called upon to design patient information materials, use the checklist in this article to guide you.
Good patient information is important for several reasons.
Firstly, it reinforces what a healthcare provider has told the patient. If, due to stress, a patient hasn’t absorbed the information from their provider, a brochure or information sheet serves as a reminder.
Secondly, by educating patients, good information empowers patients with the knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence to take an active role in their health and wellbeing.
Thirdly, by sharing the information with friends and family, their loved ones can take a more active role in supporting the patient.
Whether it’s information for a brochure, leaflet or website, the same design principles apply. Information design should make complex information easy to use and understand, and ultimately empower patients to take a more active role in their care.
The following checklist is designed to help you when you are called upon to design patient information materials.
1. Know Your Purpose and Audience
Before you start, consider the purpose behind creating this information. What do you wish to achieve? For example, do you wish to increase understanding or raise awareness of a disease, or give instructions about a procedure or a medication?
Next, who are you creating this information for? Who is your intended reader? Are there health literacy challenges you will need to address with this audience? Consider if audio or video is needed if there are challenges for your audience in reading the information. Consider also if English is not a first language for your intended reader, will you need to create multiple versions of the content in different languages?
2. Use Plain English
Plain English is a way to write and present information so a reader can understand and act on it after a single reading.
Use plain, everyday words. For example, instead of “commence”, write “start”; instead of “in the event that”, use “if”.
Avoid jargon and acronyms. If you have to use medical terminology, explain the terms as you go along. If this clutters up your text, put the explanations in a glossary.
3. Make It Personal
Write as you would speak to the reader. Using personal pronouns such as “we” and “you” helps create a sense of relatability and trust.
4. Use Direct Language
Adopt present and active tense to make sentences more direct (e.g.” the nurse can vaccinate your child” rather than “ your child can be vaccinated by the nurse”.)
5. Design For Readability
Use short sentences and only include one main point in each sentence.
Try to avoid using hyphens and semicolons.
Keep capitalization to a minimum. Capital letters are harder on the eye. Use lowercase letters throughout the text. Save capital letters for the start of sentences and names.
Left align paragraphs. Left-aligned paragraphs make text easier to read than justified text. Justified text can create gaps between words, which slows down reading particularly for people with dyslexia.
6. Avoid Dense Text
Dense text means patients lose concentration and therefore cannot find the information required. To avoid this, keep your paragraphs short. Short, clear, separated chunks of text encourage those with reading difficulty to continue reading.
Use headings and paragraph breaks to separate blocks of information.
Good use of large text, white space and columns can also help readers to more easily assimilate information. Make sure related information is located together and not split over different columns.
7. Pay Attention to Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. No matter how well written the text is, if it is set out in a typography which is difficult to read, it is going to adversely affect readability and comprehension.
Choose Arial or Calibri type fonts for readability. When it comes to font size, 10 point is too small for most people to read. 12 point is more suitable. Choose 14 point for older people and children. 16 point is used for partially sighted people. Finally spacing between the lines should be 1.5 line spacings.
8. Use Design To Enhance Comprehension
How the information is set out in the document is an important feature of readability and comprehension. People tend to scan when they read information (this is particularly true of online information), so your document should have a logical order and structure to help readers find their way through the information.
You can achieve this in a number of ways, including the use of reversed text (e.g. white lettering on a dark background), headings and subheadings in bold font, bullet or number points. Use bold instead of italics and underlining as italics or underlining make text harder to read.
When using bulleted lists, make sure each item follows logically in sequence. Keep lists to a maximum of eight points where possible and start and end a list on the same column or page.
Tip: Use callouts to highlight key messages for content skimmers.
9. Choose Good Visuals
Visuals such as pictures, diagrams and photos can sometimes say more than words. Ensure the images you use are real, relatable and sympathetic to the reader.
Avoid idealized, ‘photo-shoot’-style images of people.
Choose images that are inclusive. Use images that don’t reinforce negative or stereotypical attitudes especially for ethnicity, age or gender.
10. Signpost to Other Sources of Information
Including other useful sources of information, such as helplines of patient organizations and general sources of medical information is a valuable source of further information and support for patients.
Do not confuse people by covering several treatments and conditions in the same leaflet. Tell people what other information, resources and support are available to them.
This is an edited version of an article originally published by the Patient Empowerment Foundation