Multilingual Description Research Articles

Eye Tracking Study on the Impact of the Manufacturer's Logo and Multilingual Description on Drug Selection Performance

The object of the study was a proposed standardized format for Abbott prescription drug labels as it would be applied to domestic and international cartons. We focused on two label elements which were not investigated in our previous study (Bojko et al., 2005) — an additional logo and multilingual description of the drug carton contents, and their potential effect on drug selection performance. Twenty-two pharmacy practitioners completed a series of tasks that involved locating a particular drug among several others. Eye movement measures (fixation count, mean fixation duration, and pupil diameter) and conventional performance metrics (error rate and time on task) were collected. The results suggested that neither the Abbott “a” nor the additional languages affected participants' accuracy, search and information processing efficiency, or mental workload. We discuss additional factors for consideration in a follow-up study to further investigate the effect of multilingual descriptions on user performance.