Human Factors Design of an AIDS Prevention Pamphlet

Abstract

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) can be contracted by persons who are transfused with blood that contains by HIV the AIDS virus. As a result, in addition to testing all blood for the AIDS virus, blood collection organizations have sought ways to prevent individuals from giving blood if they (1) know that they carry the virus or (2) are at high risk of carrying the virus by virtue of their behavior. In this paper, we discuss how we followed a human factors approach to the design of a pamphlet that uses plain English and pictographs to encourage high-risk individuals to exclude themselves from the donation process. To develop the pictographs, we followed an iterative design process that involved user testing of 69 alternative designs, leading to a final set of 13 pictographs. Twenty subjects participated in the tests from which we concluded that subjects preferred the more representational pictographs; pictographs employing a cartoon or line drawing style.