Animated explainer

 ^{For the full experience, turn the sound on!}

A different take on a healthcare animated explainer: an energising retro gaming visual and sound style to explain the benefits of not abandoning prescribed treatment.

Background

It was back in 1733 that the original St George’s Hospital opened on Hyde Park Corner, and since then it has built an international reputation for research, medical advances, education and quality of care. Now an NHS Foundation Trust, St George’s together with Queen Mary’s Hospital is the largest healthcare provider in South West London. Despite the size of the organisation (over 9,000 staff serving a population of 1.3 million in the area), the hospital is proud of its strong links with the local community.

Challenge

It’s with that strong sense of community and commitment to the best patient care that Professor Patrick Kiely, leading consultant rheumatologist at St George’s Hospital, approached us. Our brief was to help educate patients about starting Allopurinol treatment for gout, having identified that face to face discussions and traditional patient information sheets were not effective in establishing patients successfully on this treatment.

All too often Allopurinol was being abandoned by patients because existing information was failing to convey to patients the relatively complex process of starting and continuing this treatment. The rheumatology department needed a novel and better way to improve patient adherence to Allopurinol, for better gout outcomes.

Solution

A total departure from other patient communications, we suggested an animated explainer that is inspired by the arcade games of the 80s and 90s.

Our client provided us with a comprehensive process document which we simplified into an animation that engages while educating.

Without relying too heavily on the visual style of gaming of that era (we didn’t go as far as the heavily pixelated graphics the style is remembered for), the old skool platform game visuals tell a story of progression, and, in true gaming style, not necessarily just linear progression; instead, the different stages patients have to go through for treatment to be effective are depicted in the form of “moving up to the next level” achievements, closer to the final goal.

A simplified left-to-right, up and down platform game style movement adds to the retro flavour of the animation. And we went as far as dropping the frame rate from the current industry standard of 30FPS (Frames Per Second) to 15FPS to achieve an authentic 80s gaming feel.

We applied colour changes to the graphics to signal different stages in the treatment of gout.

Deliberately not including a voiceover to maintain authenticity, other key elements in the animated explainer are the playful sound effects we included for every milestone achieved, and the backing track, reminiscent of synthesiser music of the 80s.

We not only had fun with this project, but it was great to feel how our client trusted us with their story:

“Parker Design were fantastic to work with. They took the time from the outset to really understand our project, and kept us constantly updated along every step of the process to ensure the final result was exactly what we wanted. They were extremely responsive, professional and a pleasure to work with. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

A special thanks to Helen for all of her tireless efforts in helping to create a product we are extremely happy with! Thanks so much once again for all of your help!” – 

Professor Patrick Kiely
Consultant Rheumatologist, St George’s Hospital, London