Designer & Founder, dext
Steve Love graduated from the University of Houston's Industrial Design program in December 2020. His research paper is a condensed version of his master's thesis that took on the challenge of plastic pollution (which, admittedly, is significantly greater than any single study can fully address). He chose this direction out of an interest in the often-overlooked values of plastics' materiality, specifically the contradiction of durability vs. disposability.
Wishcycle
Research demonstrates how socially modeled consumer behaviors can be adapted with incentives; to encourage active learning of often tedious recycling rules, we present an interactive game called “WishCycle” for mobile devices that teaches players how to distinguish common plastics by augmenting the recycling experience with game elements. While the player’s attention is focused on a game, data about consumer preferences is compiled on the backend. The experiment gamifies an Implicit Association Test (IAT) mechanism to evaluate when test subjects reflexively categorize comparable stimuli into binary categories, then analyzes for biases. Our game perpetuates desirable behaviors by pairing real items that must be sorted for rewards and immediate feedback for each selection. The combination of recognizable products and positive reinforcement reframes the chore of recycling into a fun experience that educates consumers about sustainable consumption practices while also documenting how players interact with specific items.
