| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 設計研究所 === 98 === With the drug bag being an easiest way by which patients derive the medication information that concern them the most, it is also a major source of medication information to the majority of the general public. Although the drug bag adopted by a majority of local medical institutions continues to rely on the text to convey the medication information, yet by taking into the elderly‘s deteriorating visual sensory, local medical institutions have increasingly turned to developing pharmaceutical pictograms for prescription on drug bags over the recent five years, aiming to facilitate in conveying the medication information, and helping the general public recognize and memorize. Yet with elderly more prone to be entrapped in the erroneous medication crisis for their difficulties in reading the text and as marred by their deteriorating memories, which could lead to loss of life in the worst scenario, hence how best to devise the presentation of pharmaceutical pictograms and text that enables said user group to search and read easily has emerged to become a subject that we must be concerned of.
To decipher how best to map out the pharmaceutical pictograms and text that facilitates the user to read and search, the study aims to conduct relevant exploration on drug bags and user assessment and design by focusing on the drug bags with pharmaceutical pictograms adopted by medical treatment facilities and hospitals in the northern area of Taiwan. And upon examining the current state of local drug bags with pharmaceutical pictograms and exploring relevant literature information, the study has begun the study by dividing it into two stages, where stage one focuses on exploring the problematic points in the original layout of pharmaceutical pictograms and text for presentation on drug bags from the user’s perspective, and upon identifying the problems, interviews have been conducted with two types of professionals, i.e. the pharmacists and visual information designers, on how to improve the problematic points identified, and the design recommendations derived from the expert interviews are used to devise the improved design for the drug bag; stage two pertains to applying the new version of the drug bag through the user testing, by which to examine whether the improved specimen helps to improve the problematic points of the initial version of the drug bag, and at least, the analysis findings are used to summarize a set of design criteria required of the drug bag with pictograms that enables the user with easy search and reading.
The study findings derived from the various stages reveal that: (1) When mapping out the presentation of a drug bag with pharmaceutical pictograms, it is prudent to incorporate the six visual elements of information framework, layout, heading, font size and type, color and graphic symbols, whereby the information framework and layout are conducted according to the reader’s sequence of reading, taking into consideration that the adaptation of the heading and font size is recognizable and readable, and the color contrast also needs to be addressed, as well as determining whether the auxiliary graphics adopted offer easy association. (2) By sorting and consolidating the expert interviews to derive reference recommendations for an improved design, and to enable an easier comprehension of the information framework, the information on a drug bag can be grouped into four major categories: the patient’s basic information, drug information, drug administering information, and secondary drug information, coordinated with headers to clear steer the location of various information, while stringent consideration also needs to be made to the font size and color usage, catering to the user group’s visual recognition, combining the recognizable characteristics of pictograms, to improve the levels of visual appeal. (3) The user testing findings revealed that the users find the new edition of the drug bag offers a comprehensive order of the information framework, and the addition of the auxiliary drug product appearance graphic also enables the user to quickly recognize the appearance of the drug and verify the drug, and more important, it is able to help the user put the medication back to the correct drug bag to avoid the scenario of misusing the drug. (4) Two pharmaceutical pictograms taking a medicine before meals and taking a medicine after meals, helps the user associate the precedent relationship through an up-down sequence of order, enabling the user to quickly comprehend and absorb the information. (5) With the standard script adopted for the inner text of the new version of drug bag with pictograms, the user’s response indicates that the standard script provides a rather comfortable visual sensation when reading it, and the variation of the font sizes that creates the visual perception of a bold or fine style is helpful to steer the user to quickly locate important information. Consequently, when adopting the foresaid design method, it is able to provide the user with the drug bag that enables the user to read and search quickly, thus enhancing the usage functionality of the drug bag.
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