Visual communication
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This branch covers the principles of communicating medical information visually. It divides by the question involved: why to use visuals, how readers process them, how pictures relate to words, why science visuals fail and how visual aids serve patients. Page layout, data displays, production of particular visual formats and broader health-literacy questions belong to neighbouring branches and topics.
- The case for working visually — understanding, attention, the place of visuals in medical writing and the history of visual explanation
- How a visual works on the reader — perception, prior experience, mental effort, attention, recognition, memory and information architecture
- Pairing a picture with the words — visual support for text, matching form to purpose and images as the primary medium
- The common ways a science visual fails — story, audience, accuracy, visual form, overloaded design and cognitive bias
- Visual aids for patients — understanding and recall, treatment timelines, and testing pictures and complete aids with users