Linda Nhu

• PhD
• Associate Professor · Head of AAU Design Lab at Aalborg University

Second-hand product consumption is pivotal for the success of circular economies, yet engaging in the shopping transactions presents challenges. While still niche, these shopping channels validate consumers’ acceptance and purchasing of pre-owned products influenced by various factors identified through literature. This paper synthesizes the litera...

The paper explores the integration of emotional design elements in the development of medical devices to enhance user acceptance and adherence. It emphasizes the importance of a user-centered approach, acknowledging both functional and emotional needs. The study compares two cases within healthcare design, highlighting the impact of emotional desig...

Cooling is becoming an essential commodity in our modern lives. Cooling is not just important for human comfort but also essential for prolonging the shelf life and quality of almost everything from food to vaccines. The need for cooling is increasing due to the impacts of climate change. In the building sector, specifically housing, we still rely...

Affordance describes an object or space in terms of the actions made possible for the human in the meeting of a design (or non-design) of anything. Affordance is a key concept across all scales of design, as it allows us to not only understand a site, structure, or object in terms of its physical, aesthetical, and material, properties but how these...

Today, secondhand businesses, play an increasing role in prolonging product lifetime and postponing product obsolescence through circularity. Currently, research on circular consumption is nevertheless still limited (van Dam et al., 2020). While the resell and reuse of products is still a 'niche phenomenon' (Wilts et al., 2021), the mere existence...

Consumers' perspectives on the reuse of products are crucial to understand for supporting and achieving a circular consumption and economy. While secondhand products are still a niche phenomenon (Wilts et al., 2021), secondhand markets validate the consumers' willingness and desire to reuse products (Gregson & Crewe, 2003). To accommodate the call...

Today research has come far in explaining distinct aspects of design expertise at different skill levels. However, with the increasing number of studies, we argue there is a need to assimilate present knowledge. In this paper we advance the field of design expertise by conducting a structured literature review. Through a systematic search of papers...

Effective repair practices are identified as a key strategy to prolong product lifetimes. This study examines how repair practices differ across product categories at repair cafés in Denmark. 370 incoming products are divided into four categories: static, mechanical, electrical, and electro-mechanical, and are then evaluated based on fixers' previo...

Repair cafés have been identified as a key approach for addressing the issue of decreasing product lifetimes (Charter & Keiller, 2014, 2016; Bakker et al., 2014). These cafés offer free repairs of products by volunteers, which extends their lifespan. In this study, we examine how emotional attachment of repair volunteers affects their inclination t...

Due to customers’ increased focus on environmental sustainability, companies have been looking to position themselves as producers of consumer goods with greater longevity. Useful tools exist within academia to assist companies in this transformation process. However, the knowledge is scattered, and the focus of tools is often on either the mapping...

Purpose A shift in supply management is underway. Nonlinear connections of buyers and sellers in business ecosystems challenge conventional supply management practice. Digital technologies and network connectivity lower the costs of connecting and collaborating with loosely related external parties. This paper aims to explore how this challenges co...

A core challenge of network innovation is the issue of how to govern resource interactions in networks. In this paper, we suggest that Alderson’s (1957) model of organised behaviour systems is a valuable way of understanding the governance of resource interactions in selected sets of interacting suppliers. We explore a longitudinal case involving U...

This paper presents an exemplary case in the car industry: the design of the new MINI Cooper, released in 2001. Through a semi-structured interview with design expert Frank Stephenson and the use of secondary data, we examine how an expert designer considers time to design a car relevant across decades. We find that the framing of the new MINI Coop...

Past research shows there are significant barriers for creating long lasting products. In this paper we examine, the distinct collaborative barriers design consultancies face when striving to design long-lasting products for client firms. Data is collected through case studies (four months of observations and interviews) from three projects. Throug...

When prolonging the physical lifetime of products, it is important to also consider the value lifetime, the time before customers discards the products because it no longer has any perceived value. In this paper we study design and marketing strategies known to be particularly relevant to enhance the value perception of consumers, hence lifetimes o...

As a counter-reaction to the increasing speed at which products are consumed, companies have embraced the idea of designing products that last longer. To understand characteristics of long-lasting products, this paper examines the product categories and design properties of products that are inherited, and thus have a prolonged product lifetime. Ba...

Product longevity is a key to improving the sustainability of production and consumption patterns. However, at many companies, extending product longevity requires overcoming several complex barriers. Identifying how to begin this process can be difficult; moreover, the available solutions may seem too complex or radical and, therefore, may be igno...

Keywords: product lifetime; planned obsolescence; product durability; product lifetime extension; prolonged product life. Abstract: Product longevity is one of the keys to achieving more sustainable production and consumption patterns. However, in many companies, extending the longevity of products means overcoming several complex barriers. For sma...

This paper investigates tools for material selection to consider aesthetic obsolescence. Current literature covers material selection and product obsolescence separately or on an overall level, whereas this paper strives to investigate the link between material selection tools and aesthetic obsolescence dimensions. Through qualitative studies of fo...

Product longevity is an important part of the circular economy discussion, contributing to global sustainable development. However, practicing and adopting product longevity remain challenging. Currently, the literature primarily focuses on various proposals and strategies that could lead to an increase in the longevity of products. However, adopti...

This paper, responds to the recent calls in research, to address the theoretical underpinnings of entrepreneurial strategies in MNC’s. Today, a multiplicity of entrepreneurial approaches exists, cf. skunk work, bricolage, bootlegging. However, these exists in disparate literature, that provides limited oversight to managers in, that need to select...

This paper contributes by clearly identifying the shortcoming of design thinking as well as pinpointing where to begin in terms of achieving a more solid conceptualization of the concept. To identify its potential shortcomings, this study examines the theoretical structure of design thinking and compares it to the theoretical structure of designerl...

In recent years, focus on the designer's ability to frame wicked problems has underlined the important positioning of the designer as a key player in the early phases of innovation. However, further clarification and development of the theory and terminology of framing are needed in order to understand and support the rather complex framing process...

Designing a remarkable product innovation is a difficult challenge, which businesses today are continuously striving to tackle. This challenge is particularly present in the fuzzy front end of innovation, where the main product concept, the DNA of the innovation, is determined. A main challenge in the fuzzy front end is the reasoning process: innov...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the strategic intent and consequent organisation of innovation summits. Innovation summits have recently appeared in practice as a new approach by which firms strategically market and further their open innovation agendas both internally and externally. Design/methodology/approach To advance the...

Growing technological complexity makes it impossible for individual firms to be updated on all technologies relevant to new product development (NPD). Involving suppliers, who have knowledge of complementary technologies, in the early phases of NPD is therefore quite a common practice. However, the timing of involvement presents a management challe...