Does design matter at zero-waste collection stations at a music festival? If you look carefully, you can find strategic design opportunities everywhere.
Sustainability efforts require an awareness and understanding that will help transform behavior over time.
The 2017 Pleasantville Music Festival was held on July 8th. The annual event attracts between 4,000 to 5,000 people. For the past 5 years, I have been part of a team that organizes and runs a zero-waste initiative for the music festival. We set up collection tents where we help people sort their waste into collection bins labeled for composting, recycling, and (sadly) trash. As enthusiastic as people are to help with the zero-waste initiative, it can be a stressful and pain-point moment for them. They don’t always know how to sort their cups, plates, and food scraps. In the past, we have watched people squint at the collection bin signs and wonder out loud where to drop their waste. It’s this moment of anxiety that we saw as a design opportunity.
Many people want to be engaged in our sustainability efforts, but it’s hard for them to focus on it in the middle of a music festival. The crowds and the music are distracting. Our goal is to give people a simple and relevant experience and provide a better understanding on what is recyclable and what is compostable and to help them form habits that can used every day.
When they approach the collection tents, most attendees want to participate in the sorting process, but they are not always sure how to do so. Our signage was not very legible from a distance and our volunteers were not completely familiar with the items that should be recycled and composted. To help, we made two simple changes to the process. These changes connected to both the logical and emotional sides of the brain and have broader implications towards creating a positive cognitive effect for the attendees.
- We updated the design of the signs that labeled the collection bins.
- We added a cheat sheet for our volunteers to the back side of each collection bin.
The new signs were made from used lawn signs from a local school-board campaign, which we collected and painted. (If you’re going to promote zero waste, you better be consistent with your process and methodology.) To allow for flexibility and multi-use, the boards were painted with chalkboard paint. In the end, instead of using chalk, we decided to set the copy on 11 x 17 sheets of paper that we taped to the boards. This allowed for clear typography that could be viewed easily from several feet away. With the addition of a more visible and color-coded materials banner at the top of each sign, we gave our attendees an easier and quicker comprehension and recognition of the three different bins during the approach to the tents.
In the picture below, you can see the design changes between the 2016 and 2017 signs.
We had volunteers stationed at each tent who engaged with the attendees as they sorted items into the three bins. The cheat sheets (and some additional training) provided the volunteers with easy access to the information they needed so they could be more comfortable talking to the attendees and giving guidance. This knowledge and confidence allowed the volunteers to be less anxious themselves and better able to assist and praise attendees for helping to make the festival zero-waste. This engages the attendees on both the logical and emotional of their brains by reinforcing the positive nature of the drop-off and the collection by creating a positive and helpful experience. Speaking of our volunteers, we could not have accomplished this initiative without the most dedicated and hardworking people out there.
Research has proven that a positive experience can influence our judgment and allows us to be more open-minded and thoughtful. By making the drop-off and sorting experience easier, more helpful, and friendlier, we created a positive experience that will create positive memories. It’s not our goal to be heavy-handed and didactic during a music festival, but if we can give people a comfortable and relevant experience, then we can create a positive effect on their cognitive behaviors later. In his book, The Design of Everyday Things, cognitive scientist Donald Norman discusses that changes to behavior can be achieved with three levels of design.
- Visceral: The impression – The updated sign design was easier to read and understand.
- Behavioral: The experience – Connecting to both the logical and emotional sides of the attendee’s brains is critical to creating behavioral changes.
- Reflective: The memories – By designing a comfortable experience, we gave the attendees a positive memory of the drop-off and information for them to reflect on and apply later.
Our goals were to focus not only at the immediate tasks of collecting waste at the music festival, but to create more awareness on recyclable and compostable materials. A positive experience can overcome bias and uncertainty to build trust which in turn increases the understanding of your message, in this case, sustainability. It’s these small changes to cognitive behavior that can lead to long-term behavioral changes.
Design is an iterative process. As we look towards next year’s festival, we plan to gather more information on behaviors and expectations through surveys and other means. Humans are complicated, and it takes a system to create relevant experiences that can bring on behavioral change. We can’t make everyone read our collection signs or care about composting and recycling, but we certainly connect to those that have some initial awareness around the issues.
As we look at reinforcing or changing behaviors, it’s the design process that will help drive the solutions. Design isn’t just about products; it’s about the experiences and the story. These days, people expect a personalized and relevant narrative. Many brands and products are following a strategic design methodology to create these personalized experiences, but the opportunity to create trust and to create impactful behavioral changes exists everywhere. There’s no better way for this change to happen then with sustainability initiatives. It’s especially better if you can listen to some amazing music at the same time.
A special thanks to my PleasantvilleRecycles team members. It’s their hard work and creativity that drives the continued success of the Pleasantville Music Festival zero-waste initiative. And to the leadership team of the Pleasantville Music Festival for their continued support. It takes a village…