Abstract

This paper documents a national design collaboration to devise new methods for analyzing, designing and testing new graphic symbols for use with Limited English Populations (LEP) in health care environments. Symbol systems have tremendous potential for cross-cultural communication, as is evident in airports, Olympic venues, and other places with diverse user groups. But their extreme simplicity also creates the possibility of miscommunication. Symbol design is a challenging process in any circumstance, even when the audience shares common culture and experiences, since their decoding of simple graphic elements is dependent on clear, unambiguous visual references. How do cultural differences add to this challenge? How do they affect an audience’s interpretation of a visual message symbol? A consortium of 4 university design schools set out to determine which visual elements and factors are universally understood by different cultures, and which are culturally specific, by devising new symbol design and analysis methods. This research was conducted to assist Hablamos Juntos, an organization that attempts to improve LEP communication in healthcare settings. For this project, 20 new medical symbols were developed. Upon completion of the new symbol designs and critical selection of candidates, user testing was conducted in LEP environments. While these design and testing methods would be useful in any symbol design process, they are especially vital for cross-cultural communication. Minimal research has been conducted or published that examines the specific components that make a symbol work (or not work) across cultures. Future design teams can implement the methods devised here, so that their symbols are not based on trial and error, or on faulty assumptions about other cultures. This design/research collaboration was quite likely the first of its kind across U.S. design schools.