Determine what kind of microscope to use. If you are testing viability, a simple light microscope will suit your purposes. If you want to measure cell motility, consider using a confocal microscope, which will project videos of moving cells to your computer, enabling you to measure the exact distances they move. If you want to visualize fluorescent drugs within your cells, consider using a fluorescent confocal microscope.
Carry out your experiment. Incubate cells with the drugs you are studying, place them in experimental conditions, etc. Be sure to have a control that you do not expose to experimental conditions.
Create multiple slides of experimental and control cells.
Place experimental and control groups of cells under the microscope. If studying viability, stain cells with Trypan blue. Dead cells will take up the dark blue dye. You can quantify dead cells vs. live cells for a given cell volume using a hemacytometer. If studying motility, place cells under the confocal microscope. Take a snapshot of the cells when you first put them under the microscope. Take snapshots after 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 1 minute and 5 minutes. Quantify cell movement vs. time for the experimental and control groups. If studying cell uptake of a drug, use a fluorescent microscope with the appropriate fluorescent lighting to view the cells and the drug. Take snapshots of cells in multiple areas of the slide.