The phenomenon of product/business failure, as well as lack of environmental sustainability and learning limitations, is fast becoming a recurrent ‘disease’ for investors, designers, design sponsors and education policy makers in many developing countries with poor persuasiveness contributing a large quota to such failures. This has greatly hampered the education, poverty alleviation and developmental efforts of the governments of such societies. In a bid to curb this negative trend, children, who are major influencers in product purchase behaviours of adults, have been targeted specifically by persuasive designers, in an effort to both educate and adopt them as means of reaching the larger populace. However, most researches in current persuasive system designs are limited to the information communication/management technology or computerized environments. These systems are technology/internet-driven and many potential users, in reality, in the developing world, unlike the rest of the world is often made to believe, do not have open access to such systems. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of any persuasive system is dependent on its accessibility to its user(s). Technological backwardness (often concealed behind ostentatious self-deceptive facades) has led to the poor persuasiveness of local persuasive systems and products in the third worlds. Therefore, adopting a mixed method for establishing the factor(s) limiting the efficiency of the computer/electronic-human interaction persuasive systems (CHIPS) in South-West Nigeria (N=900), this study established the need to adopt more of the product/entity-human interaction persuasive system (PEHIPS) as an effective alternative for third world countries as, based on the study outcomes, the CHIPS proved less relatively effective in comparison to PEHIPS in rural regions. It however recommends the alternating adoption of a combination of both computerized and entity/product driven systems for the purpose of optimizing persuasive effectiveness in developing worlds.

The increasing urbanization of many third-world cities has led to increased generation of solid wastes which are often ill-managed and indiscriminately dumped, posing grave challenges to local environmental engineers and designers. This has consequently reduced the sustainability of many built and natural African environments. Therefore, this study was aimed at practically applying aesthetics in solid waste management as a means of optimizing sustainability in urbanizing West African environments. Adopting a descriptive approach supported with direct observation, with a total sample size of 610, respondents were purposively sampled in selected research sites in Nigeria. Following one hypothesis testing, the study showed a significant association between improved environmental affordance (derived from aesthetics) and the alleviation of negative user responses to the environment (such as indiscriminate dumping of solid wastes). The study also showed that more aesthetically negative environments offers more negative environmental affordance than positive environmental affordance. The results confirm that the majority of users of the environments (humans) exhibit more positive environmental behaviours when positive affordance is perceived from the environment. The study therefore established the significance of the practical application of aesthetics in the management of solid wastes in urbanizing third world environments.

The basic difference between a sustainable aesthetically positive urban environment and an aesthetically negative one is in the way its component installations are rendered. The aesthetic positivity (AP) or aesthetic negativity (AN) of the whole is dependent on the aesthetics of the little parts that constitute it. Although may be functional, many electrical installations in Nigeria still lack considerable aesthetics mostly due to lack or laxity in the knowledge or practical application of basic design theories and principles. This study therefore examined how the application of design principles and theories used in graphic design can apply in electrical and design installations as a way of fostering a more aesthetic, yet functional and sustainable environments in developing West African countries using aesthetics as a key driver. Adopting a descriptive approach supported with direct observation, with a sample size of 320, respondents were purposively sampled in selected cities in Nigeria. The study showed a significant relationship between the application of graphic design theories and improved environmental aesthetics through the rendering of attractive-functional electrical/design installations. It also revealed that improved aesthetics of electrical/design installations limits negative interference which improves sustainability/safety in the built environment, hence serving as an abatement tool or technology for the alleviation of AN. This study therefore established the significance of the application of design theories and principles in achieving a more aesthetic, functional and sustainable environment, from the professionals’/ practitioners’ perspective.