Hi Monica, Peter, Mike,
My PhD dissertation is about evaluating how visual rhetorical appeals affect people with limited functional literacy, particularly in health.
Monica, you may find useful Karel Van der Waarde’s article in Visible Language (2010), he used rhetoric as a method of analysis to evaluate information of prescription medicines in Europe. In health graphics, there are a couple of literature reviews from medical research authors about the use of graphical information in medicine. They may be useful as well (see Anker et al. 2006; Houts et al., 2006). If you look at the examples, you will see that the visual information used in the studies is simple and appeals to reason. Studies with more complex visual systems are limited (e.g. Baranowski et al. 2011). I suspect that some American technical communication journals may have some relevant references for you.
I think that a major knowledge gap is studies that analyze characteristics of design besides achieving a health outcome. Some studies may prove that the use of graphics enhances comprehension, changes attitudes, or changes behaviors, but they won't explain what elements of design supported that change. That's why I am looking into the rhetorical appeals (as a design element). For example, appeals to credibility may have more efficacy than appeals to reason in low-literacy audiences, even if the rational information is very simple.
Knowing that a graphic or a visual system increases health knowledge or changes health behaviors (or any social issue) may help health communication practice, but that does not tell much about how to design better graphics or visual systems for health and other problems of similar complexity. We should aim to transferable/generalizable design knowledge (design elements or design methods) that could be applied to other health and non-health visual communication design problems.
Mike, I am very curious about the design methods that you found in the HPV study. How will you be able to argue that a particular design method is better than another?
Best,
G. Mauricio Mejía
Assistant professor, University of Caldas, Colombia
PhD in Design candidate, University of Minnesota, USA
MDes alumnus (UC-DAAP)
References:
Anker, J., Senathirajah, Y., Kukafka, R., & Starren, J. (2006). Design Features of Graphs in Health Risk Communication: A Systematic Review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association , 13 (6), 608-618.
Baranowski, T., Baranowski, J., Thompson, D., Buday, R., Jago, R., Griffith, M., et al. (2011). Video game play, child diet, and physical activity behavior change: A randomized clinical trial. American Journal of Preventive Medicine , 40 (1), 33-38.
Houts, P., Doak, C., Doak, L., & Loscalzo, M. (2006). The role of pictures in improving health communication: A review of research on attention, comprehension, recall, and adherence. Patient Education and Counseling , 61, 173-190.
Van der Waarde, K. (2010). Visual Communication for Medicines: Malignant Assumptions and Benign design? Visible Language , 22 (1), 39-69
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