| abstract |
| Background Despite the rapid growth of the international care services industry worldwide, research on communication between patients and medical staff with different languages and cultures is very scarce. Due to the difficulty in communication, the medical staffs suffer from demanding workload, fatigue and stress, while the patients’ satisfaction with international medical service experience is quite low. In an globally competitive international healthcare service environment, it is critical to design the capacity of customized care services focused on cultural characteristics such as language, religion, and lifestyle in order to improve service satisfaction of stakeholders.
Methods In this paper, we present an information design research that was developed as the S Hospital clinic guidebook for Muslim patients from Middle East. Based on Paivio's double-coding theory and the literature review on the characteristics of Muslim and Arab design, we proposed three design strategies for the effective communication through the understanding of users' cultural characteristics and usefulness of clinic guidebook. In addition, we conducted an evaluation study to measure users satisfaction based on each design factor that has been applied to increase the usefulness of guidebook.
Result Overall, the user satisfaction and the usefulness of guidebook was confirmed from the evaluation study. It was found that the use of images in guidebook was a useful factor for users to understand the information. In addition, cartoon style image reflecting Arab culture was analyzed as the most satisfactory factor among design factors. Information created only for Muslim patients was difficult to find in the actual medical environment, but it was judged that Muslim patients and caregivers showed high interest in providing information considering the cultural characteristics of users and received positive evaluations.
Conclusion The significance of this study can be found in the practical value of proposing design strategies not only to examine particular cultural characteristics of users but also to increase the user satisfaction of through the design of clinic guidebook. Furthermore, we hope that this research will contribute to the improvement of the various means of communication and understanding information in the context of medical service, specifically by reflecting the characteristics of specific culture and users. |
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| Key Words |
| 의료 커뮤니케이션 디자인, 문화 디자인, 정보디자인, Medical Communication Design, Cultural Design, Infographics |
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