A layered approach to designing public health communication diagram for improved information accessibility
Young-ae Hahn, Byoungkwan Oh, Inhye Hwang · 2023
Public health communication (PHC) material design requires information accessibility, consideration of the readers’ health literacy, prior knowledge levels, and the depth–length of information the reader can process without feeling too much cognitive burden. We proposed a layered approach to PHC diagram design: providing multi-layered (basic, extended) information, to support the reader’s cognitive activities of recognition and inference-making, while the basic layer reduces some readers’ cognitive loads. A qualitative test conducted with an example layered diagram of how COVID-19 vaccination works confirmed that (1) the college-educated readers in their 20s have an insufficient level of prior knowledge of vaccination and the human immune system, but (2) the diagram was effective in broadening their understanding, and (3) the basic layer imposed lower cognitive burden than the extended layer, so (4) even though information on both layers were considered useful, the majority of participants preferred the basic layer to extended layer while some of them preferred both. We propose an information framework for a PHC diagram: ■ meta information of publisher, issue date, validity period, intended audience to show the authority, validity, and relevance of information, ■ content composed on multiple levels to accommodate readers’ varying information needs, ■ explicit or implicit information goals (e.g., persuading for specific behaviors, or warning against misinformation), ■ call-to-action buttons that suggest what actions and behavior are expected, and ■ multiple design formats that are optimized to various devices, media, and consumption methods.