After I’ve grouped and prioritized the required information on the report, I started examining different ways for displaying them in a clear and concise manner. I was recently reading Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten by Stephen
After I’ve grouped and prioritized the required information on the report, I started examining different ways for displaying them in a clear and concise manner. I was recently reading Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten by Stephen Few.
He is a proponent of Edward Tufte’s principles for data design:
- Keep the design simple… “Above all else show the data”
- Help the reader understand the data… Organize & highlight what’s important
- “Ink is precious…” remove superfluous components
Based on these principles, I’ve created a minimalistic medical record, where patients, caregivers and health professionals can quickly & easily understand the data.
On to the Details
Tables for look-up
Examining each section, I discovered all, except for Lab Results, are for “information look-up”. The reader needs to know the specifics of each item. Tables are great for this. Most of the table values are also easy to comprehend without the label. So the table headers are kept small so the data will stand out.
Color used only for highlighting
Some items, like allergies, have relative importance associated to them. I used colors to highlight these items. e.g. red for severe, orange for moderate and yellow for mild allergies.
Large text with sufficient contrast to facilitate reading
This was one of the requirements identified for patients who are often elderly and have difficulties reading small print. Therefore I used larger font sizes for information that are important to a patient.
Designed for color-blindness
Approximately 10% of males have some form of color blindness. Deuteranopia, or red-green color blindness is the most common. Since red and green are used in the design to denote “out-of-range” and “in range” lab results, I paid special attention in select shades of color that will still standout for a color blind individual.
Single-column vertical layout for quick referencing
I decided to use a single-column design even on the large screen to help readers quickly find what they need. Eye-tracking studies on screen reading has shown that most readers use a F-shaped scan pattern to quickly find what they need. A layout with two or more columns can slow down the reader because they now need to divide their attention between the columns. The always-present navigation bar at the top of the screen also help the reader to quickly get to the section they are interested in.
The use of this report on a mobile device has been identified to be important for caregivers and health professionals. Both user groups reported that they are often pressed