Infographic: Informed Consent
Potentially intimidating informed consent information is made accessible to a broad audience through an infographic.
Project for Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR)
Role Research assistant and designer, under the guidance of Milena Radzikowsk
Skills Research, information design, graphic design
Date May 2019
Overview of infographic.
Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR) is a project that creates educational experiences, including virtual reality oral histories, to help students learn about historical harms.
As part of their work, DOHR researches the effectiveness and impacts of their projects when they are implemented in classrooms. For students to participate in this research, their parents must provide informed consent. Traditionally, informed consent information comes in a dense, text based document. This format can be inaccessible or intimidating to people for many reasons.
To make the informed consent information more clear to a broad audience, DOHR asked me to break it down and represent it in an infographic that could accompany the traditional documents.
This project began with research to develop an understanding of informed consent documentation standards and best practices as well as the relevant DOHR project itself. Through this research, I identified priorities for my design, including placing the participant at the centre of the story, emphasizing the participant’s choice and autonomy, and clearly chunking the information to support understanding of the different aspects of the project.
Next, I broke down the informed consent information into a variety of categories including introduction to the project, participant experience, and participant rights. I created a layout and graphic elements that support this organization. This format ensures that the reader’s understanding is built step by step.
I considered many different formats that the finished product could take. I settled on a one page, double sided infogrpahic to create a simple, clear reading experience. Additionally, this format can be easily reproduced as the project will be conducted in various schools.
The graphic style of this document is intended to give it a conversational and human feel. This contributes to the goal of creating an accessible way to communicate this information.
Overall, I enjoyed the opportunity that this project gave me to reconsider how we can communicate to obtain informed consent. It was fascinating to think about all of the dynamic ways that these communications can evolve in the future.
You can learn more about the amazing work that DOHR is doing here.