The Visualized Employment Contract. An exploratory study on contract visualization in Danish employment contracts

The essence of any employment contract should be a clear and understandable communication of the employment relationship. Using comics as a medium for employment contracts can help in achieving this goal. This article provides an exploratory case study in the context of Danish labour law. In a first step, it is assessed whether an employment contract made of comic strips would meet the formal requirements of Danish and European labour law. In a second step, the textual and comic versions of the employment contract of a Danish leisure organization are tested on two volunteer groups. The results show that both the personal utility and actionable knowledge of the users of comic contracts increased significantly compared to the users of the textual version of the contract. This provides initial evidence that contract visualization with the help of comic strips can be an important component in the reform and re-imagination of labour markets and labour law that are undergoing a fundamental transformation.