Josse de Bruijne

Medicijn in het kort

Commissioned by College ter Beoordeling van Geneesmiddelen
In a team with Mijksenaar

Using medicine can be complex and confusing, this can lead to to a less effective treatment of the condition they are ment to cure. In the worst case, incorrect use might even cause additional health risks for patients.

Mijksenaar was asked to design an a4 paper to be handed out by pharmacists, briefly introducing the main characteristics, benefits and a guide on how to use the specific medication.

Research pointed out one of the main complaints by users was that the printed infomation is far too complex. Many do not read the prescription at all or give up halfway. But the biggest problem is not how they need to take their medication, but why. Explaining well how you benefit from taking this medication, greatly improves the motivation of users to correct use.

This prescription, that is handed out together with the usual fine print that is still mandatory, solves exactly this problem. In contrast to the fine print, it focuses on the most important information, rather than listing each and every possible side effect.

Text

The text is written in easy-to-understand Dutch (level B2). Or sometimes in Frysian, or English, depending on the audience.

Built up using simple headlines, like: "What is this medicine for?", "How is it used?", "How long should it be taken?", "Be careful!", the text gives a structure that can be easily recognised by users, in the order in which they need this information. Within the text, the most important words are highlighted to make scanning easier.

Pictograms

The pictograms that were designed specifically for this project support the understanding this text, even if users have trouble understanding the text.

Using both color and shape, redundancy is added to the pictograms, so they also work when printed in black and white. Note that there is no green version of the alcohol-pictogram, as the publisher obviously does not want to endorse drinking. Instead, a neutral blue pictogram is used.

In use

After an extensive period of testing, this "Medicijn in het kort" is now handed out together with over 200 types of medicine when picked up in pharmancies.