In my last post, I noted some considerations for improving health literacy. In the next several posts, I’ll consider some instructional design issues that arise when developing health-related educational materials for learners who are not health care professionals and who may or may not have taken a biology course since high school.
I’m avoiding using the term “patient” in this discussion because while we’re all patients at one time or another, it’s not a continuous state and generally people don’t view themselves as patients in their daily lives. The term “health consumers” implies that learners are some marketing demographic. “Health activist” is also a term I considered, but it implies a level of engagement that I’m not going to assume all learners have.
Why the words matter
Why am I spending so much time explaining terminology I’m not going to use? I think it’s an important example of what should be in the forefront of our minds as we design health-related learning. We need to consider the demographics and attitudes of our learning audience. This is a heterogeneous group of people and while you can’t create truly universal learning modules, if you provide tools learners can use to create individual learning experiences, you’re more likely to maintain motivation and accomplish learning objectives.
It is all about empowerment
“Empowerment” is something of a buzzword in the health care field these days. My take is that being empowered means you are the owner and manager of your own health care strategy. This implies more than merely having an active interest in accessing health information online, it means being able to use this information.With this in mind, I submit that the ideal role of a health information Web site is not to simply push information at users of the site, but to provide users with the tools and skills they need to effectively pull information when and where they need it. I also submit that this is where many health information sites fail. There’s actually very little attention paid to how learners receive and process the information provided.
Back to first principles
Developing learning material should follow a thorough analysis of your target audience’s needs, attitudes, and environment. Many learners will prefer to access health-related learning materials online and in an asynchronous fashion. Considerations for developing good elearning will be critical. A book I recommend is eLearning by Design by William Horton. Many others are listed here.
Although I’ll be discussing elearning in some depth, it’s important to remember that elearning isn’t the only way to develop learning materials and it isn’t always the best way. Print and CDs/DVDs are viable sources of learning media and may be better for some populations (e.g., seniors, those without internet access, etc).
Some site design don’ts
Health information Web sites should not be about bombarding users with sponsored ads, increasing cognitive load, and rendering the useful information on the site less useful. They should not be about creating a scavenger hunt through links for what’s needed. If SEO trumps site usability and content quality, the site creators really don’t have the learner population in mind.
Some site design do’s
Good sites will create enduring tools and teach approaches for creating more effective partnerships between learners and their health care providers The guidance I’d like to offer, which isn’t very earthshaking, is that it’s worth returning to first principles of instructional design when developing health-related elearning.
In other words, your first question should not be “What do I want my learners to know?” but “What do I want my learners to be able to do?”
When you’ve identified the appropriate content to best support the functions learners will need to accomplish, it’s important to remember all the lessons you’ve learned about site usability. Sites should include:
- Plain language
- Readable fonts
- Good use of white space
- A liberal but appropriate use of graphics and media
- Consistent navigation (consider using a combination of visual and text elements)
- Scaffolded information, organized to reduce the amount of searching and scrolling a user needs to do
- Interactive and personalized content
In the next post, I’ll describe supporting self-directed learning when creating interactive and personalized content.
More information about Web site usability considerations when the focus is on health can be found here.