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UX Research · Medical Illustration · Eye Tracking

Understanding how people interpret medical illustrations.

A healthcare UX and HCI project examining how people understand, emotionally respond to, and make sense of medical illustrations. I designed a mixed-methods research approach that combines eye tracking, cognitive interviews, surveys, and comparative testing to generate evidence-based guidance for clearer patient education experiences.

The Problem

Patient education visuals are often created for broad audiences without enough evidence about how people actually interpret them. For patients with low health literacy, complex medical illustrations can become difficult to understand, emotionally overwhelming, and less useful for supporting informed health decisions.

The solution

I developed a mixed-methods UX research framework to evaluate how users attend to, interpret, and emotionally respond to medical illustrations. The approach combines eye tracking, cognitive interviews, survey measures, and comparative design testing to generate actionable recommendations for clearer, more accessible patient education experiences.

Multimodal UX evaluation

Combined behavioral gaze data with qualitative interviews and survey responses to capture both what users looked at and why those elements mattered.

Evidence-based design insight

Identified how specific illustration features shaped comprehension, confusion, anxiety, and perceived usefulness.

Scalable health-tech relevance

Translated findings into design principles that can inform patient portals, digital education tools, clinical decision support interfaces, and AI-generated health content.

Research Strategy

Stimulus & Experience Design

Developed and curated diverse healthcare communication materials through cross-functional collaboration with clinical, design, and technical stakeholders.

Behavioral Interaction Analysis

Captured and analyzed real-time user attention and interaction patterns using eye tracking, gaze analysis, and behavioral metrics.

User Understanding & Emotional Response

Conducted qualitative and quantitative studies to evaluate comprehension, confusion, trust, cognitive load, and emotional response.

Comparative UX Evaluation

Evaluated how design variations and communication strategies impact user understanding, engagement, and decision-making.

Multimodal Insight Generation

Integrated behavioral data, qualitative feedback, and quantitative measures to generate evidence-based UX and healthcare communication insights.

Skills demonstrated

Healthcare UX Research

Designed studies to evaluate comprehension, cognitive load, trust, attention, and emotional response in healthcare communication.

HCI & Behavioral Analysis

Used eye tracking, gaze behavior, and user interviews to understand interaction with complex visual information.

Information Design Strategy

Generated evidence-based design guidance for visual clarity, labeling, hierarchy, and accessibility.

Mixed-Methods Research

Integrated qualitative, quantitative, behavioral, and health literacy data to generate actionable UX insights.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Collaborated across clinical, research, design, and technical teams to improve usability and communication effectiveness.

Health AI Applications

Produced insights relevant to AI-generated education, adaptive communication systems, and patient-facing health technologies.

Why this matters

Complex health information must be not only medically accurate, but also understandable, accessible, and emotionally appropriate for diverse patient populations.