Testing the usability of access structures in a health education brochure.

Objectives: In health education, the design of written materials is seldom subject to experimental tests. Using insights from cognitive-ergonomic literature on usability we tested a brochure against three stepwise improved versions. Effects were assessed of pictorials that flagged references in the brochure text, the use of tabs and colour coding of these pictorials and tabs, on finding information in the brochure.

The effect of graphic organizers on subjective and objective comprehension of a health education text.

This study examined the effect of graphic organizers on the comprehension of a health education brochure text and compared subjective with objective comprehension measures. Graphic organizers are graphical depictions of relations among concepts in a text. Participants read a brochure text about asthma with and without these organizers, and subjective and objective text comprehension was measured.

Pictures and text in instructions for medical devices: effects on recall and actual performance.

Objective: The present study aimed to contribute to the design of effective health education information. Based on cognitive-psychological theory, pictures were expected to improve understanding of two existing textual instructions for using asthma devices (inhaler chamber and peak flow meter). From an analysis of the affordances and constraints of both devices this effect was expected to be stronger with the inhaler chamber than with the peak flow meter.