Share Paper: The Pictogram Builder: Development and Testing of a System to Help Clinicians Illustrate Patient Education Materials

1. Carlos Nakamura, University of Utah, United States
2. Qing Zeng, University of Utah, United States

Abstract: In this paper we describe the design and testing of a text-to-pictogram conversion system we devised to support the creation of illustrated patient education materials. The system is composed of three modules: a graphic lexicon, a graphic syntax, and a computer application that enables its user to assemble specific concepts (atomic pictograms) into ‘sentences’ (composite pictograms). We tested the quality of 25 pictograms created using the computer application against an analogous set of pictograms created manually by professional graphic designers (our gold standard). The two pictograms sets (N=50) underwent a recognition test. We found no significant difference in recognition rates ...