The problem
Staff understand the waste segregation rules. Errors happen anyway. The gap is between intention and action: a decision made in a couple of seconds, by someone mid-task, with their attention on a patient rather than on a bin.
Case study · Nudging
From automatic to reflective.
An MA dissertation asking whether nudge principles could close the gap between what NHS staff intend to do with clinical waste and what actually happens at the bin.
At a glance
If you read nothing else · 40 seconds
What I did
Applied Dual Process Theory and the EAST framework through expert interviews, hospital observation, staff surveys, waste-data analysis and a PESTEL and stakeholder assessment.
What changed
A finding that reshaped how I practise: segregation runs on automatic thinking, while training addresses reflective thinking. Which is why awareness campaigns fail.
How the work ran
Select a step
01 · Frame
The obvious framing is that people need to be told the rules. Waste data and staff surveys both said they already knew them. Reframing it as a behaviour problem — the right action at the right moment, not the right belief — is what made the research worth doing.
Why awareness campaigns fail
Dual Process Theory, applied to a bin
System 1
Automatic
At the bin. About two seconds. Mid-task, attention on a patient. Runs on habit, placement and whatever is easiest to reach.
System 2
Reflective
In the training room. Unhurried, undistracted, thinking about waste as a subject. Where every awareness campaign lands.
2 secThe decision, mid-task, attention elsewhere
EASTFramework applied: easy, attractive, social, timely
DistinctionMA Design & Environment, Goldsmiths
2015And still the thing that shapes how I practise
What it left me with
- Observed behaviour beats reported behaviour
- Friction is design material, not a defect
- Design for the capacity people actually have at the decision point
- Awareness is not a mechanism