Talks by Belinda Paulovich
Charles Sturt University, School of Communication and Creative Industries Seminar Series, 2016
Conference Presentations by Belinda Paulovich
Design 4 Health Conference, Melbourne , 2017
Technology can make a big difference in helping people feel socially connected, but it rarely add... more Technology can make a big difference in helping people feel socially connected, but it rarely addresses the needs of older adults (Pedell, Vetere, Miller, Howard and Sterling 2014). While numerous technology-based interventions have been developed to prevent isolation, and enhance social connection, there is little evidence around how effective these technologies are for older people (Barnett, Reynolds, Gordon, Maeder and Hobbs 2017, 10-11). This is of particular relevance in rural communities where longer geographic distances, combined with mobility issues of older people and fewer public services available can lead to isolation and decrease their access to community life – consequently impacting their overall wellbeing.
Rural areas in Australia are often perceived as serene, rustic, geographically isolated places populated by people who value both self-sufficiency and community spirit. While we recognise that many older people living in rural communities have deeply embedded connections to people and place, we know that relationships amongst community members is complex and that a one-size-fits-all description of social values only serves to generalise or reduce what is a very rich tapestry of interwoven elements.
This study unravels the detail of social connections amongst members of a small rural community in order to better understand which connections are most valuable to a person’s sense of wellbeing. We explore possibilities around supporting, enhancing or replicating these connections with technology in order to make a positive difference in the lives of older adults, and to address the gap in the literature around effective technological interventions for older users.
New technologies have transformed the way many industries operate, including higher education. Co... more New technologies have transformed the way many industries operate, including higher education. Combined with an unpredictable economy where employment is often impermanent and industries are volatile, we have seen an increasing cohort of students seeking to reskill to ensure employment or to capitalise on emerging opportunities as industries change. This paper explores Charles Sturt University's Bachelor of Creative Arts and Design (Graphic Design) online course as a means for retraining in the graphic design discipline for mature-age students who often balance their studies with competing demands including family and work responsibilities. Access to online education provides a flexible avenue for these students to explore new directions in their careers, convert TAFE qualifications into degrees, turn art and design passion into profit, or convert the wealth of knowledge they have gained from
different jobs into a career in the graphic design industry. Many of our students already work in and around the creative industries and are able to take advantage of this immersive workplace learning experience, often outstripping many internal students’ learning outcomes.
While the affordances of new technologies have allowed us to open up design education to a much larger, more geographically diverse demographic, online education is not without its challenges and problems. This paper explores the successes, failures and challenges we have encountered as graphic design educators in the online space, and provides insight into the ways students engage (or disengage) with the online studio. We are particularly interested in the engagement of mature-age students who are undertaking the course for retraining
purposes. This cohort will be the primary focus of the paper.
This paper proposes to turn a mirror on my own experience as a doctoral candidate from visual com... more This paper proposes to turn a mirror on my own experience as a doctoral candidate from visual communication immersed in interdisciplinary research within the healthcare sector. Design and health is a strongly emerging field where there is capacity to engender positive social change. However, design in health is often conducted in isolation with little exchange between the designer and those affected by the outcome. What if designers’ were more permanently embedded in healthcare environments? Would we see improvements in service delivery? Would we see an increase in patient satisfaction? Drawing from my own interdisciplinarity experience, this paper suggests that altering the typical healthcare paradigm to embed designers more permanently in the healthcare team has merit and should be further investigated. There is an opportunity to more rigorously examine design and health innovation at the higher education level, growing a shared culture of collaboration that can be built upon in the form of internships, residencies and even careers that have the potential to radically change the design and health landscape. This paper will present my experience of designing with the health industry from the rarely examined, but valuable, doctoral candidate perspective, offering insight into a successful example of design, health and higher education collaboration.
Keywords: Design and health, Graphic design, Higher education, Interdisciplinary collaboration, Participatory design
While health education materials are made readily available to patients and the general public, e... more While health education materials are made readily available to patients and the general public, evidence of patient-centred materials which explain medical procedures and health interventions in a way that enhances understanding is uncommon. This is particularly the case for child and adolescent patients who are often positioned as bystanders in the education process. Further to this, a lack of uniformity in education delivery exists across institutions, within institutions and between individuals. These differences in education provision indicate that materials should be tailored to the specific needs of hospitals, educators and patients, rather than sourced externally and forced to fit the situation.
In order to produce education materials of this nature that are accurate and engaging, collaboration between designers and health professionals is required. A merging of disparate skill sets and knowledge bases must occur to generate the desired outcome. Not only do the materials need to be produced collaboratively, they must also be evaluated collaboratively to ensure that they meet the needs of both educators and the target audience. This presentation will provide an overview of three case studies conducted in a women’s and children’s hospital within the areas of Rehabilitation, Gastroenterology and Asthma Management in which this method was explored. A comparative analysis of the cases including challenges faced, successes identified and opportunities arising from the research will be discussed.
Among the outcomes of this research was an Information Design Model for health-based communication. It is not a creative process model, but a collaborative model that designers and health professionals can use to work together more effectively in order to create visual solutions that are of most benefit to patients. The process of developing this model will be discussed along with suggestions as to how it can be implemented in real-life health settings.
Background and aims
It has been proven that humans have a preference for picture-based informati... more Background and aims
It has been proven that humans have a preference for picture-based information, yet there is a significant lack of well-designed, accurate, purpose-created health education materials for children. It is hypothesised that multi-disciplinary collaboration between the disparate disciplines of design and health is required to meet this gap. Literature detailing collaboration between the two disciplines is incredibly scarce, therefore the aim of this research is to document and assess the value of the process.
Methods
3 case studies have been established whereby the researcher (as designer) interacts with a health professional across a series of 4 to 5 in-depth interviews. The aim of these interviews is to identify areas in which communication difficulties arise with child patients and explore design concepts as solutions. As well as analysing these interviews, the researcher engages in self-reflective practice and records visual milestones throughout.
Results
Difficulties including time commitments, interruptions and establishing a common discourse impeded the collaborative process across all case studies. However, access to domain-specific knowledge and emersion in the health environment were a positive influence. Health staff responded enthusiastically to the visual outcomes of the collaboration.
Conclusions
The positive response from health staff indicates that there is potential for visuals to add value to the patient education process. The next step is to implement and evaluate the results of the collaboration in real-life education sessions, examining both patient and health professional responses to ensure that the visuals meet the needs of all end-users.
Every day, patients receive health information in a number of different formats and from various ... more Every day, patients receive health information in a number of different formats and from various sources. A consistent communication method that takes visual literacy into account has the potential to add value to the patient education process. Visuals have the benefit of making complex information accessible to various audiences and clinical populations including those with limited native language ability, auditory impairment or deficits in information processing, attention or working memory. The visual understanding of concepts enables more effective and efficient communication with these audiences.
Producing effective visual communication devices that convey complex medical phenomena is difficult. How can meaningful images be developed by clinical staff who don’t have the technical skills to do so, or by designers who don’t have the domain-specific knowledge to produce accurate content? Multi-disciplinary collaboration offers a solution, with an emphasis on bringing together disparate skills. Within this team, the designer functions as visual literacy expert and the health professional as clinical knowledge expert, enabling technical information to be made visible by good design. By merging knowledge bases a holistic approach to visual literacy in health communication can be achieved.
This paper demonstrates that embedding the designer in the health field enables visual devices to be customised to the teaching requirements of the health professional and the learning requirements of the audience. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the design of visual education materials is avoided. In addition, the importance of prototype testing to optimise visual learning opportunities will be explored. These factors will be discussed within the framework of a qualitative case study in a women’s and children’s hospital, focusing primarily on the education of child and adolescent audiences.
Keywords: Collaboration, communication, health education, multi-disciplinarity, patient education, visual communication design
Papers by Belinda Paulovich
Journal of Design Research, 2019
Participatory design is a democratic process that involves direct collaboration with end-users to... more Participatory design is a democratic process that involves direct collaboration with end-users to achieve design outcomes. In healthcare, patients are often considered the most valuable group to recruit into participatory design activities. However, when designing in unpredictable health settings with end-users who may be marginalised, direct designer-patient interaction is not always advisable, and as a result, designers may perceive that they are neglecting the fundamental democratic principles of participatory design. This article presents a communication design study that was conducted in an Australian children's hospital where clinicians were used as designer-patient mediators. I argue that the use of mediators can open up participation to a much wider range of end-users, including those that a designer cannot access, aligning with participatory design's democratic philosophy.
Information Design Journal, 2017
Designing information for pediatric health education that is easily interpreted by patients is co... more Designing information for pediatric health education that is easily interpreted by patients is complicated by factors including attitudes and complex power relationships. This study examines such factors in relation to three pediatric health education case studies on asthma management, chronic functional constipation and rehabilitation. They emphasize direct communication with pediatric patients with a view to increasing patient empowerment. Strategic graphic design is employed in collaboration with clinicians to create multimodal semiotic resources. This paper examines these cases within Wahlin’s CHaSSMM Model (Wahlin 2015), which combines social semiotics with multimodality and critical hermeneutics. CHaSSMM’s potential is making explicit the project’s underlying power structures and meaning potential of multimodal, semiotic resources. It begins with an overview of the pediatric health education case studies and the CHaSSMM Model of analysis, and then explains how CHaSSMM can provide support for the planning and interpretive stages of design projects.
Using visuals to communicate with young patients is an effective alternative to the complexity of... more Using visuals to communicate with young patients is an effective alternative to the complexity of verbal or written information. However, producing communication materials for paediatric rehabilitation patients is difficult. How can meaningful visuals be developed by clinical staff who do not have the required technical skills, or by designers who do not have the domain-specific knowledge or patient empathy required to produce holistic content? This paper posits that multidisciplinary collaboration offers a solution, with an emphasis on bringing together designers and health professionals. Within this team, the designer functions as visual expert and the health professional as patient advocate, thus enabling domain-specific information to be made visible by good design. By merging knowledge bases a holistic approach to patient education can be achieved.
Poor communication in health is a persistent problem. Transient conversations, extreme time const... more Poor communication in health is a persistent problem. Transient conversations, extreme time constraints, stress, trauma, clinical factors and the restrictive environment make effective communication between health professionals and patients difficult to achieve. Children, especially, are often positioned as passive participants in the healthcare paradigm. It is hypothesized that providing children with visual health information (well-designed, accurate, age appropriate, and presented in a way that they can understand,) can empower them to take charge of their health and well-being. For visual health education materials to be effective, accurate, and engaging, they need to be designed with input from design practitioners, health experts, and the target audience. However, constraints within the health field, such as restricted access to patients, make this difficult. Furthermore, when children are involved, ethical and practical obstacles can hinder the process. The research presented in this paper navigates the complexities of the health field and presents a realistic participatory design model that responds to the specific challenges associated with designing in a health-care environment. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated through successful designs and positive health professional feedback.
Books by Belinda Paulovich
Learning to see: the meanings, modes and methods of visual literacy, 2019
There is an abundance of literature that shows that verbal communication is frequently misunderst... more There is an abundance of literature that shows that verbal communication is frequently misunderstood by patients. While verbal and textual information can be appropriate for health literate audiences, information tailored to the needs of children is limited. This chapter focuses on the education of child and adolescent patients and proposes that visual communication can address this gap through the use of collaboratively designed visual materials. Visuals have the benefit of making complex information accessible to various audiences and clinical populations. As well as being easily stored and re-called by cognitive systems, visuals are particularly beneficial in the education of children as they are central to child culture from a very early age through artefacts such as picture books which are a first encounter with visual literacy. As health professionals are not necessarily trained to produce visuals, and designers are not necessarily health experts, multidisciplinary collaboration is required. Within this team, the designer functions as visual literacy expert and the health professional as clinical knowledge expert, sharing domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant skills. By merging knowledge bases a holistic approach to picture-based health communication can be achieved. This chapter discusses these factors within the framework of a qualitative case study in a women’s and children’s hospital in South Australia, focusing primarily on collaboration between the disciplines of graphic design and health. The chapter demonstrates that encouraging the designer to visit the health field enables visual materials to be customised to the teaching requirements of the health professional and the learning requirements of the audience. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the design of visual education materials is avoided. Additionally, the importance of prototype testing with the target audience and the ways this testing can be used to optimise visual learning opportunities are explored.
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Talks by Belinda Paulovich
Conference Presentations by Belinda Paulovich
Rural areas in Australia are often perceived as serene, rustic, geographically isolated places populated by people who value both self-sufficiency and community spirit. While we recognise that many older people living in rural communities have deeply embedded connections to people and place, we know that relationships amongst community members is complex and that a one-size-fits-all description of social values only serves to generalise or reduce what is a very rich tapestry of interwoven elements.
This study unravels the detail of social connections amongst members of a small rural community in order to better understand which connections are most valuable to a person’s sense of wellbeing. We explore possibilities around supporting, enhancing or replicating these connections with technology in order to make a positive difference in the lives of older adults, and to address the gap in the literature around effective technological interventions for older users.
different jobs into a career in the graphic design industry. Many of our students already work in and around the creative industries and are able to take advantage of this immersive workplace learning experience, often outstripping many internal students’ learning outcomes.
While the affordances of new technologies have allowed us to open up design education to a much larger, more geographically diverse demographic, online education is not without its challenges and problems. This paper explores the successes, failures and challenges we have encountered as graphic design educators in the online space, and provides insight into the ways students engage (or disengage) with the online studio. We are particularly interested in the engagement of mature-age students who are undertaking the course for retraining
purposes. This cohort will be the primary focus of the paper.
Keywords: Design and health, Graphic design, Higher education, Interdisciplinary collaboration, Participatory design
In order to produce education materials of this nature that are accurate and engaging, collaboration between designers and health professionals is required. A merging of disparate skill sets and knowledge bases must occur to generate the desired outcome. Not only do the materials need to be produced collaboratively, they must also be evaluated collaboratively to ensure that they meet the needs of both educators and the target audience. This presentation will provide an overview of three case studies conducted in a women’s and children’s hospital within the areas of Rehabilitation, Gastroenterology and Asthma Management in which this method was explored. A comparative analysis of the cases including challenges faced, successes identified and opportunities arising from the research will be discussed.
Among the outcomes of this research was an Information Design Model for health-based communication. It is not a creative process model, but a collaborative model that designers and health professionals can use to work together more effectively in order to create visual solutions that are of most benefit to patients. The process of developing this model will be discussed along with suggestions as to how it can be implemented in real-life health settings.
It has been proven that humans have a preference for picture-based information, yet there is a significant lack of well-designed, accurate, purpose-created health education materials for children. It is hypothesised that multi-disciplinary collaboration between the disparate disciplines of design and health is required to meet this gap. Literature detailing collaboration between the two disciplines is incredibly scarce, therefore the aim of this research is to document and assess the value of the process.
Methods
3 case studies have been established whereby the researcher (as designer) interacts with a health professional across a series of 4 to 5 in-depth interviews. The aim of these interviews is to identify areas in which communication difficulties arise with child patients and explore design concepts as solutions. As well as analysing these interviews, the researcher engages in self-reflective practice and records visual milestones throughout.
Results
Difficulties including time commitments, interruptions and establishing a common discourse impeded the collaborative process across all case studies. However, access to domain-specific knowledge and emersion in the health environment were a positive influence. Health staff responded enthusiastically to the visual outcomes of the collaboration.
Conclusions
The positive response from health staff indicates that there is potential for visuals to add value to the patient education process. The next step is to implement and evaluate the results of the collaboration in real-life education sessions, examining both patient and health professional responses to ensure that the visuals meet the needs of all end-users.
Producing effective visual communication devices that convey complex medical phenomena is difficult. How can meaningful images be developed by clinical staff who don’t have the technical skills to do so, or by designers who don’t have the domain-specific knowledge to produce accurate content? Multi-disciplinary collaboration offers a solution, with an emphasis on bringing together disparate skills. Within this team, the designer functions as visual literacy expert and the health professional as clinical knowledge expert, enabling technical information to be made visible by good design. By merging knowledge bases a holistic approach to visual literacy in health communication can be achieved.
This paper demonstrates that embedding the designer in the health field enables visual devices to be customised to the teaching requirements of the health professional and the learning requirements of the audience. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the design of visual education materials is avoided. In addition, the importance of prototype testing to optimise visual learning opportunities will be explored. These factors will be discussed within the framework of a qualitative case study in a women’s and children’s hospital, focusing primarily on the education of child and adolescent audiences.
Keywords: Collaboration, communication, health education, multi-disciplinarity, patient education, visual communication design
Papers by Belinda Paulovich
Books by Belinda Paulovich
Rural areas in Australia are often perceived as serene, rustic, geographically isolated places populated by people who value both self-sufficiency and community spirit. While we recognise that many older people living in rural communities have deeply embedded connections to people and place, we know that relationships amongst community members is complex and that a one-size-fits-all description of social values only serves to generalise or reduce what is a very rich tapestry of interwoven elements.
This study unravels the detail of social connections amongst members of a small rural community in order to better understand which connections are most valuable to a person’s sense of wellbeing. We explore possibilities around supporting, enhancing or replicating these connections with technology in order to make a positive difference in the lives of older adults, and to address the gap in the literature around effective technological interventions for older users.
different jobs into a career in the graphic design industry. Many of our students already work in and around the creative industries and are able to take advantage of this immersive workplace learning experience, often outstripping many internal students’ learning outcomes.
While the affordances of new technologies have allowed us to open up design education to a much larger, more geographically diverse demographic, online education is not without its challenges and problems. This paper explores the successes, failures and challenges we have encountered as graphic design educators in the online space, and provides insight into the ways students engage (or disengage) with the online studio. We are particularly interested in the engagement of mature-age students who are undertaking the course for retraining
purposes. This cohort will be the primary focus of the paper.
Keywords: Design and health, Graphic design, Higher education, Interdisciplinary collaboration, Participatory design
In order to produce education materials of this nature that are accurate and engaging, collaboration between designers and health professionals is required. A merging of disparate skill sets and knowledge bases must occur to generate the desired outcome. Not only do the materials need to be produced collaboratively, they must also be evaluated collaboratively to ensure that they meet the needs of both educators and the target audience. This presentation will provide an overview of three case studies conducted in a women’s and children’s hospital within the areas of Rehabilitation, Gastroenterology and Asthma Management in which this method was explored. A comparative analysis of the cases including challenges faced, successes identified and opportunities arising from the research will be discussed.
Among the outcomes of this research was an Information Design Model for health-based communication. It is not a creative process model, but a collaborative model that designers and health professionals can use to work together more effectively in order to create visual solutions that are of most benefit to patients. The process of developing this model will be discussed along with suggestions as to how it can be implemented in real-life health settings.
It has been proven that humans have a preference for picture-based information, yet there is a significant lack of well-designed, accurate, purpose-created health education materials for children. It is hypothesised that multi-disciplinary collaboration between the disparate disciplines of design and health is required to meet this gap. Literature detailing collaboration between the two disciplines is incredibly scarce, therefore the aim of this research is to document and assess the value of the process.
Methods
3 case studies have been established whereby the researcher (as designer) interacts with a health professional across a series of 4 to 5 in-depth interviews. The aim of these interviews is to identify areas in which communication difficulties arise with child patients and explore design concepts as solutions. As well as analysing these interviews, the researcher engages in self-reflective practice and records visual milestones throughout.
Results
Difficulties including time commitments, interruptions and establishing a common discourse impeded the collaborative process across all case studies. However, access to domain-specific knowledge and emersion in the health environment were a positive influence. Health staff responded enthusiastically to the visual outcomes of the collaboration.
Conclusions
The positive response from health staff indicates that there is potential for visuals to add value to the patient education process. The next step is to implement and evaluate the results of the collaboration in real-life education sessions, examining both patient and health professional responses to ensure that the visuals meet the needs of all end-users.
Producing effective visual communication devices that convey complex medical phenomena is difficult. How can meaningful images be developed by clinical staff who don’t have the technical skills to do so, or by designers who don’t have the domain-specific knowledge to produce accurate content? Multi-disciplinary collaboration offers a solution, with an emphasis on bringing together disparate skills. Within this team, the designer functions as visual literacy expert and the health professional as clinical knowledge expert, enabling technical information to be made visible by good design. By merging knowledge bases a holistic approach to visual literacy in health communication can be achieved.
This paper demonstrates that embedding the designer in the health field enables visual devices to be customised to the teaching requirements of the health professional and the learning requirements of the audience. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the design of visual education materials is avoided. In addition, the importance of prototype testing to optimise visual learning opportunities will be explored. These factors will be discussed within the framework of a qualitative case study in a women’s and children’s hospital, focusing primarily on the education of child and adolescent audiences.
Keywords: Collaboration, communication, health education, multi-disciplinarity, patient education, visual communication design