Design of forms for clinical trials (1).

If one accepts that the design of the forms used in clinical trials is important, and that there is behavioural research which might be drawn on to improve their design, the question now is how can such improvements be achieved. One mistaken view is to hope that when behavioural scientists have explored all the many facets of form design there will arise a set of guidelines that guarantee success. Certainly, summaries are available of the research on graphic communication,'-' and we give a synopsis of our major conclusions in this paper. There are also discussions of questionnaire design4 and of alternative production methods.5 But many of the problems of designing fcirms are not straightforward-for example, issues about the content of the form cannot be decided from a set of guidelines.