Information Design in Healthcare: Critique of a Journal Article (Part 3. Critical Appreciation)
Conceptual
The authors’ mantra is ‘principles of Information Design’, yet ‘Information Design’ is neither defined nor a single example of any such principle offered. This omission forces the assumption that these authors and the readers of the Journal of the Society for Technical Communication enjoy tacit consensus regarding these matters.
A certain paradox emerges regarding supporting arguments: studies and cited evidence must be associable if they are to lend credence to the experimenters’ claims, but the hypothesis they bolster must be sufficiently original to merit testing and make any contribution to its field.
Culpability has to be demonstrably isolated by discounting alternative explanations for respondent failings, if cause and effect is to be unequivocally established (in as much as that is ever possible). In the case of this particular study, giving subject matter information to respondents prior to their completing the forms could help achieve this. Such material might go some way toward countering the knowledge-related variables that were wholly discounted in this study. Pre-teaching would of course complicate the testing of the hypothesis, but it would also ensure a reduced degree of respondent variance due to health literacy, which would in turn boost the validity of the findings.
The comparison methodology may be conceptually flawed for the following reason: a specialist’s creation will almost certainly be superior to that of someone who is not explicitly trained to create a comparable product. With that in mind, might the authors not have found some better way of demonstrating the value of Information Design in practice?
Practice
The study raises several issues for expansion, among them the need to, as far as is feasible, plan for potential obstacles and leave the way open for further examination into those problems, work any difficulties encountered into future hypotheses to be tested, and expand conclusions drawn to incorporate the significance of any such problems.
Also, the authors did not, perhaps as a result of wording restrictions, award sufficient attention to clarifying and providing context for their terms (optimizing, satisficing), or illustrate connective reasoning. Such details help minimize reader speculation and uncertainty, especially when the terms and the concepts they relate to are critical to the study.
Arguably, the authors were themselves guilty of failing to properly evaluate their audience (the various health industry professionals who influenced the study constituted a secondary but nevertheless important audience) or predict likely obstacles that might have compromised the study. And, when forced to make unwanted adjustments (add page numbers), contrary to usual scientific methodology, the authors conceded in order to continue the study; but had they adequately explained their hesitations, the nature of the possible impact the amendments could have had, and accounted for how this interruption might have or did affect the outcome, they would have converted this negative experience into rich discussion, which could have increased the academic value of this study markedly.
Presentation
The report would have benefited from less overlap of arguments and evidence, so that the specifics of each might have been more easily examined and evaluated on its own merits. Clearer separation also prevents issues becoming clouded with tangential questions raised by the inclusion of what might otherwise be seen as inappropriately cited studies. If possible, arguments and/or claims could be listed and grouped by concept. This approach could be interpreted as excessively structural or merely a stylistic issue, but the report is an ideal opportunity to demonstrate Information Design principles at work, principles that would support the authors’ case in two-fold fashion – by assisting reader access to key points and claims, and, thereby, demarcating them for individual appreciation or criticism (if even a small number of arguments and the studies that support them are independently robust, they constitute far greater solidity as hypothetical foundation than a much more voluminous amalgam of semi-relevant material).
Recommendation
Health literacy researchers are likely to obtain practical benefit from applying the findings of this study. To researchers that already have knowledge of Information Design and its principles, this study is an enlightening addition to the field, and therefore commendable. But its value to technical communicators is academic rather than practicable, in that it propagates the belief that Information Design has much to offer but considerable way yet to go before it attains mainstream recognition; it does not convey any material advice or actual techniques beyond endorsing conventional methods of usability testing.
The large number of studies cited form an excellent resource for further investigation into surrounding theory and relevant areas that are bound to be of interest to Technical Communication professionals.