Graphic Design and the Healthcare Industry

You may not think of graphic design when you’re thinking about health care, but graphics are an everyday part of our lives. In fact, graphic design helps make products and services we use quick and easy to understand.

Whether you’re seeking to make a fast and recognizable way for somebody to know where to go with a well-made sign, or if you’re a doctor or nurse using a program that offers images rather than bulky text to navigate software, well-made design is a vital element that makes a difference.

Graphic design has multiple goals when combined with utility. It creates brand recognition and awareness, helps user experience by making things easier to understand such as data or software, and helps with desired behaviors.

Design Simplifies Complex Ideas

With so much information continually being shoved at us, the simplicity of not having to overthink is a win. By choosing an image over a block of text, it makes life easier. We quickly see what we want and can click on an image in a software program. This may seem trivial, but the amount of time it can save is monumental when it’s repeated day after day, by person after person.

Easy to understand graphic design elements simplify everyday processes in so many ways, we often overlook them. Think about your mobile phone and how we click a familiar app, or even an exit sign in a theater. The image is familiar and fast to recognize. The same thing works in health care industries. We recognize colors and design.

Graphic Design Helps with Utility

Our eyes and brains are trained to work efficiently. Graphic design can help nurture the doctor and patient relationship making things easier to explain. Charts that offer images like show me how much it hurts on a scale of 1 to 10 with images of facial expressions is a perfect example of how we use graphics in everyday life, but don’t put thought into the fact that the piece of literature needed to be designed.

Showing a visual chart can help patients understand data that might not be easily digested. Visuals are easily understood. They take the complexity out of the equation, by using a simple picture.

Graphic design is implemented in every aspect of our lives, whether we think of it that way or not.

Graphical Design Helps Guide Behaviors

Whether it’s a sign that encourages behaviors, or ways to help patients interact, graphic design has an important role in the healthcare industry.

They can guide behaviors based on color, shape, design, or user experience. They can create cohesive branding, helping us recognize something in the blink of an eye.

Lines, shapes, font, and texture can add voice to a design. We immediately know that red means caution or stop in a lot of instances. Think about a simple red sign with a strong font that indicates that an area is closed off to the public in a hospital.

The thought process that goes into graphic design is something many people don’t understand or appreciate, but a well-thought-out design gets its message out in the right way. If your message isn’t clear, the design wasn’t done well. It’s just as important to get elements of a design right as it is not to get it wrong.

Spacing can be just as important in making things easy to identify, as well as adding legibility. Appreciating the fine details of graphic design, you’ll easily start to see the many ways that it’s used in the day to day processes of medical settings. In the health care industry, whether it’s via complex machinery and software, data, or the simplicity of a caution sign, design is all around us.

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