We are building a printed voucher (hard copy) for lab tests which looks like the following :

enter image description here

The lab test center people who take the tests should mark the checkboxes with a pen or a marker against thoses tests which are taken.

However the problem which we are seeing consistently is that sometimes the people at the lab test center forget to turn the page if there are more tests and the users end up getting fewer tests performed than required. we have texts tried texts like "PTO", "please turn over" etc, but it doesnt work 100% of the times.

What we think:

I think we can implement 1/30, 2/30, 3/30 ... 30/30 in the lab test serial no. but for some reason even that doesn't seem right.

Any ideas or suggestions ?

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    "users end up getting less no. of tests done than required" - if ever there was an example of how important UX design is – Dave Haigh Aug 26 '15 at 11:12
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    Im a little weirded out by this question because you're asking how do people know to turn a page, when the physical feedback should be there. There are 5 pages, therefore you should go to the other pages as you finish. Has there been a situation where someone goes like "Oh, I have 5 pages and I've only done one, I'm going to turn this in now since I didn't have feedback to continue." – Majo0od Aug 27 '15 at 13:35
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    @Majo0od It's not two separate sheets, its one sheet printed on both sides. So if you hold it, you only hold one sheet, and you could miss that it has two sides with information printed on it. – Jan Fabry Aug 27 '15 at 20:33
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    Use cheap paper that is not opaque. – Crissov Aug 31 '15 at 12:25

10 Answers 10


I think a start would be to make it clear the total number of tests and/or total number of cards at the top of each card. And also the breakdown of how many rows you seeing out of that total.


  • Total Tests: 22

  • Page: 1 of 2, showing tests 12 of 22

Mockup 1

enter image description here

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    you should use these answers as a starting point. by no means is this mockup exactly how you could solve this problem. basically consider clear messaging, and hierarchy of the information to make it clear there are more tests to view. good luck. sounds like an important one to get right! – Dave Haigh Aug 26 '15 at 11:54
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    or just print onto a roll? so they get one long sheet? ;) – Dave Haigh Aug 26 '15 at 11:56
  • So what I ended up using was a full width dark band like the one you have suggested on the top of the table, with text "Total tests: 18" on the LHS and "6 more tests ->" on the RHS. The only difference being that , my dark band is below the table. – aelor Aug 26 '15 at 12:00
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    Shouldn’t that be “tests 1 to 12 of 22”? (Or “1 through”, I always forget which.) – Crissov Aug 30 '15 at 18:18
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    @Crissov. One through twelve in American English; one to twelve in the civilized world. – TRiG Aug 31 '15 at 14:16

Simply adding the arrow at the bottom will help. Check the below img enter image description here

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    Its meant to be a page flip, but a real looking page flip would be worth it imo. Also say what it is, "Continued on Back". As big as it can be without looking obnoxious. – Andrew Hoffman Aug 26 '15 at 13:17
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    Add MORE TESTS ON BACK in big bold letters, immediately after the bottom test. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Aug 26 '15 at 13:21

There are many good answers about annotating the bottom of the page clearly (I like Dave Haigh's best), but as an alternative, how about making the last task (on each side) indicate that tests continue on reverse -- that way, it's directly in what they're (meant) to be reading/completing? I don't have an image editor to hand, but instead of:


download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups



download bmml source

You could even make it a task in itself:


download bmml source

And if you want to address the "what if someone starts on page 2" problem, you could do a similar thing at the top of the second page:


download bmml source

Essentially, it's like "Carried forward" / "Brought forward" you see on statements or invoices, and obviously (I hope) the idea can be extended to as many pages as needed.

One final point: if the test numbers (1, 2, 3 etc.) -- as opposed to the Test IDs -- have significance, then these could be omitted from the carry-forward / brought-forward lines.

  • its amazing as how people come up with such innovative ideas, thank you so much +1 – aelor Aug 27 '15 at 9:47

Option 1: Print on multiple pieces of paper

Just out of curiosity, is printing it on two separate pieces of paper an option? Having two papers and a staple indicates clearly to the reader that it isn't a single page document.

Option 2: Add something to the end of the test to indicate it is done

I wonder if there are workflow type triggers that you could use... Maybe you could add a signature and date field as the last item on the test. If people fill out multiple tests, they will be accustomed to signing their name at the end and will not submit the test unless their name has been signed.

Option 3: Present the test in a way that implies it may have multiple pages

How do you provide the tests to people? If it is on a clipboard, the process to turn over the test involves removing it from the clipboard and re-attaching it. If you provided the test to someone in a binder, this implies that the content is multiple pages.

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    Option 1: :) beautifully simple – Algy Taylor Aug 27 '15 at 14:01
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    Printing on both sides is a bad UI for use on a clipboard (or a binder), especially for of all things, medical tests. Y'all can afford another sheet of paper; you cannot afford to screw this stuff up. What idiot decided to save paper instead of lives? – Mazura Aug 27 '15 at 20:54
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    Actually, there's an advantage to double-sided printing when you're talking about two-page forms. If there's only one sheet, it's a lot harder to lose part of it, which is a very common problem with bulk form handling. It also eliminates the need for staples or paper clips. – barbecue Aug 30 '15 at 1:07
  • Can you reduce the row height so more rows fit on one side of the sheet? Can you use a longer sheet of paper and put everything on one side? – JeromeR Dec 1 '15 at 13:51

Use workflow and cognitive dissonance to draw the user's attention

  • The form workflow is top-to-bottom, left-to-right. So the user will naturally end up at the bottom right of the page.

    • So, place the page-turn indicator on the bottom right since the user's eye will be there.
  • The form uses a grid layout, and has a lot of content. Therefore if you use standard font and grid alignment for the page-turn notice, it will be easy for users to miss the page-turn notice because it doesn't stand out.

  • Use cognitive dissonance to deliberately break the grid layout and jolt the user into noticing the page turn.

For example...

This layout uses a different/bold color, a grid-breaking icon, and different font size and style to create cognitive dissonance that draws the user's attention to the page turn notice.

It also uses imperative language ("do this") in the page notice to provide clear instruction to the user once she sees the notice.

enter image description here

It's an exaggerated example intended to show different techniques for creating dissonance. You will need to figure out which combination of techniques work for your form.


These are great answers, particularly Dave Haigh's, however none of them seem to address one important issue:

What if the paper initially is placed on their desk with page 2 upwards?

All the suggestions about "turn over to see page 2" don't address the issue of "turn over to see page 1".

For example the big black box "10 more tests" somehow needs to be also on page 2 with something like, er, "10 fewer tests". No, that isn't right!

But there needs to be something, as there could be a 50% chance you just see test 13 onwards and not really notice that you are not starting at test 1.

Something like this for page 2 (I didn't get the numbering right, but it shows the idea):

Test example

  • Personally I found that Dave's answer implied this behavior with the page headers. – Hanna Aug 28 '15 at 20:18
  • I would expect that continuing the numbering from the previous page would also help. People would probably notice if the tasks started numbering from 15, especially if only half the sheet was filled, and turn over the paper to find #1. – CompuChip Aug 29 '15 at 6:56

There are good and reasonable answers here that explain how to show readers that they must turn the sheet around, but what you really want in medical applications is making sure all necessary tests have been ordered/performed, not superfluous ones and not the wrong ones (for adjacent rows for instance).

That is why I think it is more important to change the single check-box into a double check-box for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ or vice versa. This requires more ticks by the pen user, but every other user can easily check if both sides of the form have been completed and hand it back if not (with some snarky remark or raised eyebrow which constitutes the social pressure that ensures this does happen only this one time).

Also, I would move the column with the fixed-width ID that contains a mnemonic acronym after the full name, next to the check-box so it works as a close-by label. This should reduce row mistakes.


download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups

(Unless, of course, I misunderstood the workflow.)


What happened to the conventional arrows that were correlated to the number of pages there are?


download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups

You don't even have to show that left arrow when you're on page one.

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    we are dealing with hard copies of a4 sheets here sir – aelor Aug 26 '15 at 11:30
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    +1 as I actually half asleeply clicked the arrow to show more of this post. – Immortal Blue Aug 26 '15 at 12:33
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    Hah! That's funny! – Majo0od Aug 26 '15 at 12:34

You can add an extra checkbox at the end of the form that says: "All checkboxes are checked" or "Check all test receipts are attached", or something to that effect. For this to be effective, lab workers need to be trained and conditioned to expect a checklist completion checkbox on every checklists they use regularly.

The purpose of this checkbox is to condition the lab tests workers to check that they've actually reached the real end of the checklist and to go through the forms one last time before passing on the workset to the next person or before they move on to the next task.

  • The idea is interesting, but cognitive dissonance should be used in this case: it needs not be just another line in the form, but something with a very specific layout, that you expect to see because it stands out. – Chop Aug 31 '15 at 13:19

It may be culturally dependent (Czech Republic), but the sign I've always known, seen, and used to indicate "turn page over" is a (big) percent sign in the bottom right-hand corner. In this particular case, it's not really a percent sign, but indicates a sheet of paper being turned over, or alternatively that there is something on both sides.

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    I've never seen that. (USA here) Do you have an image you can add to your answer? – Mayo Aug 31 '15 at 14:14

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