01
City tour
What it offeredConversation in person. An information truck could visit schools, universities and city centres.
What held it backPeople had to choose to approach it first; reaching those outside formal education was uncertain.
be a Hero · Organ donation communication
The hardest step was making a decision.
A student campaign concept: a game that would open a difficult conversation, then help people carry their own choice into real life.
Explore the case
- Role
- Research, strategy and design · shared equally with Martha Miosga
- Timeframe
- Winter 2013/14
- Context
- Master’s course project, HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
- Status
- Student campaign concept · not commissioned or launched
01 / Starting point
Willingness did not become a documented choice.
Our documentation was titled “Organ donation in crisis”. After the transplant scandals of 2012, donor numbers in Germany had fallen by 12.6% to 1,046, according to the German Organ Transplantation Foundation (Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation, DSO). The survey figures we reviewed showed a further gap: many people said they were open to organ donation, yet far fewer carried a donor card. The communication problem was not simply a lack of awareness. People had to confront an uncomfortable subject, understand their options and record a decision.
I researched and developed the strategy and visual concept with Martha Miosga; we shared the work across every phase.
About three in fourOpen to donating
About one in fourHad a donor card
Approximate figures from representative surveys by the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) up to 2010, as cited in our 2013/14 documentation. They describe the project’s starting point, not today’s situation or measured campaign results.
The design question became: how do you make room for an informed yes or no?
02 / Audience
One message could not meet everyone where they were.
We mapped four concept personas along different stages of decision-making. They were strategic models, not people we interviewed. Each stage suggested a different job for the communication.
Franziska · 18–29
Start without pressure.
Her first need is a reason to engage. A playful encounter can open the subject before asking for a position.
Communication taskInvite curiosity
These names and stages were planning devices in the student project. They do not represent validated audience segments.
03 / Direction
The format had to make the first step feel easy.
We worked out four scenarios and rated each one against our four personas. Young adults were the core audience; teenagers and adults were possible extensions.
02
Concert
What it offeredShared energy. A positive event could meet a young audience in a familiar setting.
What held it backHigh cost and a single evening left little space for a considered follow-up.
03
Interactive film
What it offeredA strong emotional hook. The viewer could become part of the story.
What held it backIt relied on a costly production and risked shock overshadowing information.
04 · Selected
Smartphone game
What it offeredAn easy first encounter. Short interactions could be revisited and shared on a personal device.
Why we chose itSpace to develop. The story could introduce information in steps, then lead beyond the game to a donor card.
The playful entry took inspiration from Dumb Ways to Die. We applied that approachable tone to a different aim: helping someone make and document their own organ donation decision.
04 / Game
From a small game to a choice you could hold.
Cheerful organ characters invited a first encounter. The story then changed tone and asked players to consider donation. Its proposed endpoint was a personalised, printed donor card — for a yes or a no.
Play before being asked to decide.
A short challenge with the lung character makes room for curiosity before the subject becomes serious.
Another character, another challenge.
The repeatable mini-game format could keep the playful world alive long enough for more than one encounter.
Then the story slows down.
After an accident, two doctors confirm brain death in hospital. A light interaction turns into a moment to understand what donation involves.
The player meets the decision.
The brain-death character asks the player to decide: ‘be a Hero’ and donate, or switch off the machines. A short film explains what brain death means.
A yes or no becomes tangible.
Unlocking levels and characters earned a personal donor card in a character’s colour. The DSO, as proposed sender, would print and post it; the decision on it, yes or no, stayed the person’s own.
Behind the screens
The original game flow was mapped before the campaign mock-ups.
The 2014 documentation maps the loop: mini-games, an accident, the brain-death decision, then organ choice, transport and transplant games and a level-up in which the recipient becomes the next character. Choosing to switch off the machines restarts the game. The personalised donor card was the reward unlocked through play.
Open the original planning spread
05 / Campaign
The campaign carried the idea into everyday life.
We designed the touchpoints as one path: encounter a character in public, find the game through the microsite, then take a documented decision beyond the phone. The mock-ups show the DSO as a proposed sender; the foundation did not commission the concept, and it was never launched.
01 / Notice
A character appears in the city.
Each poster used one figure, a short line and a QR code. The plan was 30 posters in each of 13 large cities, for ten days. The aim was to create a moment of recognition before asking anyone to engage with the subject in depth.
Poster phone
02 / Discover
The microsite gives the story somewhere to continue.
The original concept gathered the characters, trailer and game introduction on one page. It connected the quick public encounter to the longer experience shown above.
Microsite game
03 / Carry it forward
The decision leaves the screen.
The proposed personal card made the final action concrete. Its character colours kept the campaign recognisable, while the recorded choice belonged entirely to the person — yes or no.
Game personal card
Planned, not launched
A 22-week plan, from preparation through launch to updates.
Our schedule connected character and game production with a microsite, social content, posters and print. It named the DSO as proposed sender and was never put into practice.
- PrepareGame, web and print
- LaunchPlanned for 7 June 2014
- Appear in publicPosters two weeks later
- ContinueUpdates and evaluation
06 / What remains
The concept left a question worth pursuing.
It remained a university project: strategy, characters, game screens, posters, web mock-ups, donor card concepts and a campaign plan, with no DSO commission, launch or measured effect.
Reflection
Approaching younger people through play still seems right to me. What I would do differently: question our favourite as hard as the other routes, because in the game only ‘be a Hero’ moved the story on, although the card was meant for a free yes or no. The question I would keep exploring: how can that first spark lead to a well-informed, freely made yes or no?
- Team
- Martha Miosga and Dominik Witzke · equal roles
- Supervision
- Prof. Ulrich Schendzielorz · HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
- References
- Project documentation, winter 2013/14 · For current, factual information on organ donation: Federal Institute for Public Health (BIÖG, formerly BZgA), “Organspende: Ja oder Nein?” (in German) ↗