Public communication: a patient survey, a campus anniversary, and a policy brief

The situation

Institutional communication is often laid out the same way for every reader, so an invitation to fill in a survey, an anniversary poster and a policy brief look like three sheets from one template. In practice the three are read in completely different ways.

Who it was for

Patients and their families reading while they wait, staff and alumni who see the poster in a campus building, and policy readers who go through a brief to the last page.

Approach

I matched the layout to the way each piece is read. The survey invitation uses one face and two large QR codes so it can be scanned from a distance, the anniversary poster uses one big number as its focal point, and the policy brief uses a layered structure with the executive summary first, because its reader skims and then decides whether to continue.

Craft and compliance

The survey invitation and the anniversary poster are A4 for print; the policy brief is A4 with a narrower text column so it stays comfortable past the first page. In the brief, the executive summary sits inside a coloured block so a reader who reads only one part reads the right part.

Outcome

The survey invitation and the anniversary poster have been published and used through each institution's official channel, and the policy brief has not been published yet.

Evidence The only evidence is the material files and the channel's publication number. There is no count of survey respondents or brief readers, so an effect on policy cannot be claimed.

Reflection

The policy brief was first set with text running the full page width, and it was tiring to read. Narrowing the column added pages, but made the content actually readable.