by mathilde.bogen -

09 | Affective design and awareness campaigns

This weeks focus will be on affective design and how to design for behavioral change. The research paper Affective design and sustainability: Social stimulation at the feet of humanity written by Nadia Maria Mourão, Beatriz de Paula Mourão and Aline Mourão Lataro Hoehne is the inspiration of this blog post.

Individuals develop connections and attachments to their possessions. The stronger the attachment to an object, the more likely a person is to care for it. Designers have the power to influence this relationship. One effective method is to use awareness campaigns to encourage people to make better choices in caring for their belongings. Before going further into the power of awareness campaigns, it is crucial to understand affective design.

AFFECTIVE DESIGN

In order to understand affective design its important to define affectivity. According to the educator and physician Henri Wallon, emotions are related to the biological side of human behavior, with short physical reactions, while affectivity is broader and includes a range of expressions (Almeida, 2001). Affective design as an approach that focuses on the role of human emotions and their influence on how people understand and relate to artifacts. Affective bonds are powerful and can change the way we think, shaping how we see and understand events and change how we interact with objects (Affectivedesign.org, 2006).

It is important to understand the affective forms the user can have with a product. One common form is love. It is important to have in mind that the love a person can feel for a product differs from a love between people – there is no mutual growth. According to Oliveira (2014) the sensory contact between the person and his/hers object can become so intense that the object becomes an extension of the human body.

„Dealing with affective design in the socio-environmental sector is a small contribution that companies and institutions can make to make society aware“ (Mourão et al., 2023).

AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS – Design for behavioral change

There are multiple tools that intends to promote positive change in social attitude and one of the most important ones might be public awareness campaigns. Policymakers are responsible for creating programs for sustainable development, but the success of these efforts depends on people (Muller & Paluszek, 2017). Making these initiatives successful involves raising awareness and influencing personal attitudes and opinions. Designers play the role of opinion-makers in awareness campaigns. In the following section, I will present two awareness campaigns in the footwear industry, illustrating effective approaches of how to engage people to reflect upon their relationship with their footwear.

PET sandals campaign

In some of the poorest countries in Africa, the inhabitants make their own footwear using PET bottles and other resources they can find. They create a sandal, where the PET bottle works as the sole of the shoe. In these regions there are no recycling system, leading to waste accumulation in landfills (Mourão, 2019). In 2013, UNICEF initiated an awareness campaign called “Put yourself in their shoes” where these PET sandals were sold in Croatian shoe stores. Through the emotional appeal of design, the difference of the two realities became evident, seeing PET sandals and other footwear side by side. The campaign drew attention to the daily lives of those living in extreme poverty, but also to the use of recyclable materials in the footwear industry (Mourão et al., 2023). People got the opportunity to try the PET sandals and they could also contribute funds to support UNICEF’s initiatives.

PET sandals
PET sandals and other footwear side by side in Croatian shoe stores

Sustainable footprint – Adidas

Sustainable Footprint is an awareness campaign that Adidas introduced in Sao Paulo in Brazil in 2012 and a second version in 2015. The goal of this sustainability campaign was to minimize the environmental impact caused by incorrect disposal of sports shoes. This was done by collecting sneakers from any brand that were in no condition to use. In return, the people that handed in their shoes would be get discounts or rewards (Mourão et al., 2023). The shoes were then transported to a distribution center and then sorted into different categories depending on their condition:

  • Recycle – The raw materials would be used in creation of another piece
  • Reuse – The product would return into the second hand market after going through a hygiene procedure
  • Energy generation – The product would go through a process and eventually turn into fuel

This campaign encouraged people through rewards and discounts to the right disposal of waste for recycling.

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