Health Visual Communication Cards
Health visual communication cards support children, especially young or non-verbal ones, by providing visual tools to help them communicate effectively with healthcare professionals and caregivers during emergencies.
Scope
Market Research
User Interview
Strategic Design
Client
Pediatric Pandemic Network
Timeline
Jan. 2024 - Jun. 2024
My Role
Project Manager
Researcher
Product Strategist
THE CONTEXT
Working with young children and those with limited verbal abilities presents unique challenges, as traditional communication methods may be ineffective or insufficient. This project aims to support young and non-verbal children by facilitating effective communication with healthcare professionals and caregivers in emergency department settings, ultimately improving the quality of care they receive.
PROBLEM
Talk with different stakeholders
To gain a deeper understanding of the problem, I interviewed various stakeholders within the healthcare setting to explore potential challenges and current practices in communicating with young and non-verbal children.
EMSC (Emergency Medical Services for Children) professionals (social workers, managers etc.)
Pediatric emergency physicians
Psychiatrist
Child life specialist
Understand users and their needs
The goal is to support children and healthcare providers in the US, improving health equity.
Children
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Expressive needs
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Symptoms
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Feelings
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Needs
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Emotional support
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Fear of environments, people, and procedures.
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Cultural barriers
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Limited translation or cultural tools.
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Healthcare professionals
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Assessment needs
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Training gaps
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Limited knowledge in non-verbal cues
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Standardized approaches on how to communicate with non-verbal children
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Tools and technologies that assist children in communication
Picture-based systems offer a low-cost, flexible, and child-friendly solution for meeting the communication needs of non-verbal and young children in emergency healthcare
Daily life setting
Picture-based systems
Augmented and Alternative Communication (AAC devices)
low cost to develop
children-friendly
work for older children/adults and not work for very young children
high cost to develop
high-tech in emergencies isn't always accessible
Assistive Technology: eye tracking
Robotic and AI-driven tools
not work for this project's context
expensive and not flexible in this case
Manual Sign Language
Current child-focused healthcare solutions fall short of meeting the needs of both children and healthcare professionals due to limited, unsystematic visual content and reliance on hospitals and staff to create tools. This leads to inconsistencies and gaps across emergency departments.
Healthcare setting
EMSC Communication Card
Board-maker tools
Self-made visual schedules/boards
IDEATION
What are the product requirements?
1. Systematic visual content
2. Playful visuals that ease children's fears
3. Culturally inclusive and multilingual
Children
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Expressive needs
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Symptoms
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Feelings
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Needs
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-
Emotional support
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Fear of environments, people, and procedures.
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Cultural barriers
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Limited translation or cultural tools.
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Healthcare Professionals
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Assessment needs
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Training gaps
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Limited knowledge in non-verbal cues
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Standardized approaches on how to communicate with non-verbal children
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1. Systematic visual content
4. Supportive training
How to develop systematic visual content?
To create systematic visual content, developing a robust vocabulary is crucial. I collaborated with pediatric emergency physicians and a psychiatrist to curate a vocabulary list covering commonly used health-related terms in emergency setting. These terms address symptoms, emotions, needs, medical procedures, personnel, and environments, supporting communication, assessment, and emotional care.
How to determine visual style?
With many ways to represent vocabulary visually, how can we choose a style that achieves team consensus and resonates with children? We identified key criteria:
culturally inclusive
playful
adorable
meaningfully accurate
Before engaging an illustrator, I gathered various visual styles from comics/cartoons/AI for the team to review and evaluate, identifying strengths and weaknesses to inform the final design approach.
Following the discussion, the design criteria became clearer:
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using characters instead of emojis for greater accuracy
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incorporating bluetone skin tones to neutralize ethnic distinctions
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emphasizing childlike, playful cartoons
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utilizing simple line drawings to reduce cognitive load.
How to improve its usability?
After finalizing the visuals, ensuring user-friendliness is crucial. In an emergency setting, the tool must be compact, portable, and designed for quick navigation, allowing children and healthcare providers to easily locate items from a wide vocabulary set.
Card-set
Navigation: Use distinct edge colors to denote categories and numbers to indicate item locations.
Multilingual: Supports 12 languages for use when translations are unavailable.
Booklet
Navigation: Group vocabulary from the same category on a single page.
NEXT STEPS
User testings
With the communication card set prototype complete, user testing is essential for iterative improvements. Two key aspects to evaluate:
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Visual accuracy: Assess whether children can recognize and understand the visuals.
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Card set format: Test usability for healthcare professionals and children, ensuring effective navigation and exploring potential enhancements.
Digitalization and training support
Digitalization is crucial as it transcends the limitations of physical product distribution and implementation, while also enhancing functionality through improved navigation and expanded use cases.