Patients, Medicines, and Information  

Van der Waarde summarizes the reasons why medicinal information provided to patients is often confusing and describes a method for evaluating its effectiveness.

van der Waarde, Karel. Intercom (2004). Articles>TC>Biomedical>Scientific Communication

Typographic Dimensions and Conventional Wisdom: A Discrepancy?    

Typographic guidelines are based on a combination of legibility research and personal experience. Both of these approaches seem to ignore actual documents as a source of information. An inventory of the typographic dimensions of existing texts in different genres is required to investigate and discusscurrent typographic guidelines. In this study, three dimensions - x-height,linelength and linespace - of 106 brochures, 114 scientific journals and 110 novels were measured. The results show that the design of these documents does not reflect current typographic guidelines. The results also show that document developers specify the x-height, line length and linespace within clear boundaries andthat these boundaries differ per genre. There are preferences within these boundaries and these might be based on conventional wisdom.

van der Waarde, Karel. Technical Communication Online (1999). Design>Typography>Style Guides

Visual Information about Medicines for Patients

In Europe, when someone gets ill, it is common to visit a doctor. Most consultations end when a doctor prescribes a medicine that can be obtained from a pharmacy. After collecting the medicine a patient has to decide if the use of this medicine is more beneficial than not taking it. In order to make this decision, and in order to take medicines effectively, information is essential. Not only the instructions about how much to take and at what times, but also the potential risks caused by interactions with other medicines and common behaviour (eating, smoking, drinking, sleeping, exercising). It also becomes necessary to know how to recognize that a medicine does what it supposes to do. Historical developments have led to a tightly regulated situation in which the patient gets a clear message that health care providers (pharmaceutical industry, pharmacists, prescribers, etc) do not care very much about informed patients.

van der Waarde, Karel. University of Alberta (2003). Articles>Communication>Scientific Communication>Biomedical