Paper as an Interface

Recently finished the 2nd revision of the mother and baby booklet for Jacaranda Maternity in Kenya.

It was refreshing to get away from the screen and just put blank ink on white paper. I approached the project thinking of paper as an interface – how could I make a form that was as fast, intuitive and robust as possible for the nurses so that they could devote as much attention as possible to caring for their patients?

In regards to paper – what are its pros? Almost zero cost of entry for user, works without access to electricity or data, basic operations well understood by the masses, encourages "outside-the-box" (literally) responses, CU (create and update) of short datapoints is very fast.

What are the cons? Inputted data requires significant effort to analyze and transmit when scaled; not indexable; content can't adapt to context; no backup if stolen or misplaced; RD (read and delete) can sometimes be difficult.

I sought to create an design that maximized the benefits of the medium and am enjoying hearing feedback from the nurses and continuing to adjust the design based off of their comments.