We chose the subject because spectacle prescribing is one of the most important tasks in opticians’ work and it also greatly affects customer satisfaction. We wanted to study how opticians prescribe spectacles. Opticians’ opinions and views were of great importance to our study. We do not discuss children’s eye examinations or work spectacle descriptions in this study. The aim of the study was describe how opticians do the spectacle prescription in different situations. Another aim of this study was to give both authors, optician students’ and opticians information about prescribing spectacles. The purpose of this study was to gather information about the different procedures opticians have in diverse situations when they do the spectacle prescription.

The study was qualitative and the data were collected with interviews. Study’s informants were six opticians who had different work experience and worked either at private practices or chain stores. The data was analysed using a data-based content analysis.

The study shows that opticians determine refraction based on school knowledge but every optician has a little bit different ways to do that. Opticians did not use all the tests and equipment with all the customers if it was not necessary. The results suggest that opticians think that the spectacle prescription’s future is positive. They believed that spectacle describing is not going to change but the optical industry will change and possibly even diverge.

In conclusion it is important to pay attention to the customer’s earlier spectacle prescription and what the customer thinks about them. Based on this information and customer’s needs and work, optician makes changes to refraction for the purpose of figuring out the best solution for the customer. The findings indicate that opticians understand what spectacle prescription means and how important it is for customer satisfaction. Further research is required to determine how common different prescribing procedures are and to get results that can be generalized.