Abstract
Consumer product sustainability is a topic that has been of increasing interest to practice and academia in recent decades. In this context, a widely discussed means of achieving sustainability is to design more durable products, thereby reducing the need for the production of new products. In particular, the emotional perspective on product durability has received attention in recent design literature, since consumer products are often replaced long before they become physically non-functioning. However, the literature does not provide a full account of the causes of product replacement or of the means for making products more durable. This paper addresses these issues by defining the concept of ‘resilient product design’, providing a detailed classification of causes of product replacement, and organising means to extend product longevity. Hereby, the paper provides a more structured basis for designers to design resilient consumer products and for researchers to engage in further studies.
Keywords
product resilience, emotional durability, sustainability, consumer product design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.265
Citation
Haug, A. (2016) Design of resilient consumer products, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.265
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Design of resilient consumer products
Consumer product sustainability is a topic that has been of increasing interest to practice and academia in recent decades. In this context, a widely discussed means of achieving sustainability is to design more durable products, thereby reducing the need for the production of new products. In particular, the emotional perspective on product durability has received attention in recent design literature, since consumer products are often replaced long before they become physically non-functioning. However, the literature does not provide a full account of the causes of product replacement or of the means for making products more durable. This paper addresses these issues by defining the concept of ‘resilient product design’, providing a detailed classification of causes of product replacement, and organising means to extend product longevity. Hereby, the paper provides a more structured basis for designers to design resilient consumer products and for researchers to engage in further studies.