My snus handbook – Rethinking the lifestyle related to nicotine pouches

My snus handbook – Rethinking the lifestyle related to nicotine pouches is a collaborative design project that uses methods of human-centered design and visual communication in order to help female students who use white snus in rethinking, questioning, and reflecting on the lifestyle and emotions associated with nicotine pouches. The outcome of this project is a handbook that contains self-reflective exercises, as well as thoughts and experiences of female white snus users. The project is made in collaboration with female students who use nicotine pouches, a public health developer, and a dental hygienist. 

The use of white snus, also known as nicotine pouches, is increasing among young Swedish women aged 16–29 (Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2022). Colorful cans containing white snus, which come in a variety of flavors, are often seen on the tables in different social surroundings and places. White snus is more than just a regular modern oral nicotine product. Due to aggressive marketing on social media, white snus has become a lifestyle product that can be compared to accessories like jewelry and cosmetic products. These products are also misleadingly marketed as tobacco-free alternatives to regular tobacco products such as cigarettes and traditional snus. In fact, almost all nicotine pouches that are currently available on the market contain nicotine that is extracted from tobacco leaves. That is to say the very same unsustainable tobacco industry, which prioritizes profit over the well-being of people and the planet, is still generating behind the scenes. Therefore, we find it urgent to address and counter the lifestyle that tobacco companies have created around white snus.

​​We also know what it feels like to be addicted to these products. Both of us have used white snus in the past, and we have faced many difficulties overcoming our addiction. We have noticed that many previously done anti-snus campaigns lack empathy for people who use these products. During the project, we have also understood that the educational material surrounding this issue focuses primarily on educating consumers about the health side effects, private economy, environmental aspects, and human rights violations on tobacco farms. While these educational aspects are undoubtedly important to address, as visual communicators, we wanted to contribute to a change by finding new design approaches to the existing ones. Our goal was to distance ourselves from the visuals that lack empathy towards young women who use snus and instead develop a visual language that is motivating and engaging.

“It has become a part of daily life. Taking snus, buying snus, thinking of snus. It has become a must.” – Student, 24

My Snus Handbook is a different take on anti-snus education and campaigns. During the project, we have been using methods of human-centered design in order to understand our target audience, find inspiration, and collect experiences from female snus users. We believe that including the target audience in the design process and trying to understand their emotions leads to more effective solutions and outcomes. Therefore, at the beginning of our project, we asked female students to keep a journal regarding their snus using habits and other experiences around these products. This way, we got an insight into their experiences but also managed to test our visual language and other design choices with the target audience. In addition, the journal served as a prototype of the final product because we decided to continue developing it into a handbook after receiving a lot of positive feedback regarding our design choices from our target audience.

During this project, we have been working with the following research questions:

• How can visual communication and methods of human-centered design help female students who use snus to rethink the lifestyle related to nicotine pouches?
• Can self-reflective exercises help female students who use snus to dismantle misconceptions regarding nicotine?
• How to use visual communication to facilitate self-reflective exercises?

Since our target audience was female students who use snus, we felt that Linnaeus University is the most suitable place for the project contextualization. We created a pop-up stand to approach our target audience in the dining hall of the Radix building, an area that is often busy with students. Our objective was twofold: to foster communication about the lifestyle surrounding white snus and to obtain immediate feedback regarding our project outcome. After talking with the students, we understood that the handbook itself would not necessarily make them quit using snus directly since it is very difficult to overcome nicotine addiction. However, the students responded positively to the visual language of the handbook, finding it motivating and prompting them to rethink their snus consumption habits and the lifestyle associated with it.

The handbook

View the full handbook (PDF) or if you want to print the handbook (PDF) for your own use (please use light pink paper minimum 120g).

References

Folkhälsomyndigheten (2022). Nationella folkhälsoenkäten – Hälsa på lika villkor.  Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-statistik/om-vara-datainsamlingar/nationella-folkhalsoenkaten/