Abstract

People don’t change their opinions or their habits easily. If an intended audience is predisposed against a message the designer hopes to put forward, how does design proceed? This paper demonstrates efforts in a graphic design curriculum to apply findings of behavioral psychologists to both experience and message design. One theory (from Dr. James Prochaska) deals with ways in which behavior change often fails, and another (from one of the TED speakers, Jonathan Haidt) addresses differences in moral value systems between the communicator and listener, which can set up virtual walls (or earplugs). By looking carefully at places that could sabotage a message or experience, we can improve the chances of our design being effective when prejudices or other barriers to change are present. Both psychologists have expressed interest in these experiments which attempt to make visual design tools from their theories. In the case studies, persuasive posters attempt to bring unlikely voting populations to the polls in the last election, and an experience design project applies design to a behavior change program for diabetic patients at points where people typically drop out or give up.