Alert or Nudge?

This week we have been working with Sussex airAlert on their new leaflet - airAlert is a free 'air quality warning service' that provides people with COPD or pollution related asthma with text/email or voicemail alerts when air pollution levels are likely to rise in their area. It's a great service and particularly valuable to those recently diagnosed with asthma or COPD who are not yet in the habit of managing their own condition. We have designed a leaflet that will appeal to new users and encourage more registrations. We are working with Mel at 'a space for something'. it's the first project we have worked on together and has been a great experience so far.

The leaflet can be easily personalised to other geographical areas that are currently 'rolling out' the service in their area. The leaflet is not rocket science, just well structured design and copy that gives the target audience the information they need to make an informed decision about signing up for the service.

Having recently read 'Nudge. Improving decisions about health wealth and happiness' by Thaler and Sunstein I am really interested in the whole idea of nudging people in the right direction to help them make competent decisions. And we have used my learnings from 'Nudge' to make sure that the leaflet works for its audience. 'Nudge' for me really captures a way of thinking that is relevant to our information overloaded times. With the amazing world of the Internet at all of our fingertips we have access to infinite amounts of information and views, but often no real understanding of how we can make use of these to make decisions that improve our lives. Our responsibility in producing leaflets for airAlert is to provide the information people need in order to make a decision that could benefit their health.