UX Design Milena Cywinska In my Self-Initiated Project I have decided to tackle the question of HOW IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT, SCARY AND URGENT PROBLEM AS A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE STILL AT THE EDGES OF EVERYONE’S ATTENTION? The project is inspired by my own observations on how everyone seems inert (unfortunately, me included) to such a serious topic as climate crisis. I came to this realisation during the Dutch Design Week 2021, where most of the exhibitions focused on the topics like ecology and sustainability. While those issues were known to most of the Dutch, whose environmental awareness had been shaped since childhood, to me they were not. I have struggled for a long time already to get myself take action about the environmental issues. Topics such as recycling, veganism, eco- friendly products, and slow fashion seemed to me a trend rather than the long-term necessities they are. I thought ‘is my lack of interest completely my fault’? What if it is the way the information is conveyed that makes it come across less strongly than it deserves? The climate crisis is real and it really is terrifying. Is it so difficult to show the terrifying in a terrifying way, the way it really is? It is not. Why is then no one doing so? Something must have been going wrong this whole time, that all these ongoing protests and social movements are not being heard enough. I turned my attention to how the information is presented to the masses. Green and blue colours and a slogan ‘eco-friendly’ - oh come on, is that how we are fighting such a threat? The true effect of such design choices is that they make the issue seem childish, pleasant and unserious, and I believe they are one of the reasons of why it so overlooked. The whole topic is framed around the slogan ‘eco-friendliness’, while the products called eco-friendly are often eco-neutral and do just a bit less harm than their counterparts. How do we think of an unprecedented crisis and end up using words like friendly and green & blue colours to describe it? Why don’t we label all the other products detrimental and harmful instead? That would be bad for the business, right? Is that why the whole topic is so sugar-coated? Is that why when we think of a climate crisis, we see a happy Earth icon when a catastrophe is so close? We all know that but still do not do enough. Even looking at the most recent events – the global pandemic, a war in the Ukraine – we are capable of gathering our strengths and working together, and these are good examples. Once the war struck, looking back at my home country - Poland, but other nations as well, the response of the masses was immediate. Everyone was eager to help and let go of their own problems to help the Ukrainian refugees in whatever way they could. So, we can do good, we can sacrifice, we can work together in the face of a threat. Why is it then so different when it comes to the climate crisis? The project is to propose a new, strong, bold, provocative, and even aggressive view on the topic of climate crisis - the way it has deserved to be presented from the very beginning. As UX Design is about accessibility and experience, I am to present a new and effective way of addressing this issue. I will start with looking at slogans to analyse and label the way it is usually done. I will pay attention to colours, mediums and the way it is being voiced. Looking at photos taken during climate strikes - I can see a lot of people trying and wanting to do good, but as for me, many are doing it wrong. Let’s take a closer look at the slogans. ’Earth is changing – why aren’t we?’ Good question, indeed. ‘There’s no planet B’. Sure, we do know that already but why would I need a planet B. Surely, the answer is that Earth is about to die, but even that statement is more affecting one’s emotions. Let’s take that further, when is it going to die? ‘Save our planet!’ But why should I do so? What should I do? ’Ahh, it’s too hot!’ Is it really? I haven’t observed any difference. Even if I did, we do all like hot summers, so why should I complain. ‘Public campaigns intended to ignite widespread change frequently fail because they don’t address the psychological “barriers to action”. In other words, if you want people to change their behaviour to become more environmentally friendly or push for political change to that effect, you have to understand why they don’t respond as you would like. While we can talk about why people don’t act as they should, those reasons often obscure the real barriers, which can be far more complex than the surface reasons.’ (https://medium.com/the-infinite-universe/people-are-too-scared-of-climate-change-to-do-anything-about-it-8dc8f51f86ed) These are creative and smart indeed, but way too far-going. From a UX designer’s perspective, you need to know who your end-user is, who you are addressing. This must be the starting point of any campaign. If you are addressing the public and want them to pick (as much as I hate this phrase) ‘eco-friendly’ products, consider why with all the options available they are not doing so yet! Do they not have enough money? Maybe it’s the lack of education on the real consequences that is to blame. Make sure the slogans respond to the real reasons of why people are inert. Make the slogans clear and specific. Unless you give them a clear idea of what there is to be done and what they will get out of it, there is no way it will work. These considerations are just a starting point to presenting a whole new redefined idea of ‘eco-friendliness’. Through the project, I want to take the blame off of the usual target - the uninformed people, and shift it to the design.
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February 2023
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