Conference Paper

Extending product life by introducing symbolic meaning: an exploration of design strategies to support subjective well-being

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Abstract

Because products are often discarded while still fully functioning, it may be possible to support durability with design that stimulates a more enduring product-owner relationship. This paper is based on the proposition that one promising approach to support such prolonged relevance is by developing products with a higher predisposition for the attribution of happiness-related symbolic meaning. The study was based on a framework with six types of symbolic product meanings: positive relations with others, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, autonomy, and self-acceptance. In a pre-study, fifty existing symbolically meaningful products were selected based on these six symbolic meanings. In the main study, seven designers and design researchers analysed these fifty products with the aim to uncover underlying design directions. This resulted in sixteen design directions. The directions can act as a source of inspiration to designers when aiming to design for a long-term meaningful product-owner relationship.

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... 39 Krippendorff stated that the intent of and response to a design is not necessarily related 40 and, in earlier writings of his, that "no one can presume that form (the designer's objectified meaning) and (the user's) meaning are the same." 41 Crilly et al. on the other hand challenge this in their research on whether the designer's intention is related to user interpretation. They rely on evidence that, in many cases, users actually do "correctly" interpret the intended use of a product and its functions. ...
... This leads them to state that with "respect to product safety, it is important for designers to anticipate how their work might be 38 Klaus Krippendorff, The Semantic Turn (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2006), 54. 41 Krippendorff, quoted in, Nathan Crilly, David Good, Derek Matravers, and John P. Clarkson, "Design as Communication: Exploring the Validity and Utility of Relating Intention to Interpretation," Design Studies 29, no. 5, (2008): 37. interpreted because it is interpretation rather than intention that determines product use." 42 Equally, they rely on Kazmierczak who emphasized the importance for a designer to be capable of making users respond in certain ways to their designs: "The more strategically successful the design is, the more accurately and consistently does it trigger similar thoughts in different receivers. ...
... A list of topoi is provided in Casais and Desmet's writings on design strategies. 41 Based on analysis of existing products, they propose a list of values to be explored by designers. They describe these in terms of symbolic meaning. ...
Thesis
Design has the potential to affect the situations we are in, the choices we make and the beliefs we live by. Being such an affective field, one might expect that canonized design thinking models and methods would be much concerned with how designers can discover arguments for their design choices. However, these are predominantly concerned with the phases to go through in a design process and the steps to take rather than informing design practitioners of how to explore their arguments of why. Concepts and theories from rhetoric are employed here to explain how designers can develop a process where questions of not only how, what and when are explored, but also a thorough investigation of ‘why’. Significant examples from both design students and design professionals are investigated through a rhetorical hermeneutical approach, which leads to the development of a rhetorical framework for design. The conclusion is that a design process of deliberation can be divided into three areas, drawing on theories and concepts from rhetorical epideictic topoi, amplification of arguments, and constitutive rhetoric, respectively. Together, these three areas define a Topos-Driven Model for deliberating about design choices, which is concerned with not only the making of things but with affecting of situations, actions and systems. In area one, the designers reframe the problem by means of epideictic topoi—meaning that they look for values to celebrate. This leads to deliberation about values to praise in the situations they intend to address by design rather than first and foremost thinking of a problem to solve. In area two, the designers look through the available means of amplification. The purpose of this is to discover ideas for making the design solution as persuasive as possible. In area three, the designers analyze the inherent ideology of their design solution. Moving through these three areas leads to a design process of deliberation and self-deliberation on the available means of persuasion in the given situations. Furthermore, it leads designers to being not only concerned with designing persuasive products but also with reflecting on the inherent ideology of their designs, how it might affect people’s beliefs, and whether they can justify this.
... We have seen that clothes are more than physical items we interact with. Clothes are expressions of ourselves; they are memory holders, charged with feelings, full of symbolic meaning [26,34,43]: ...
... If a product holds so much of a person's happiness, chances are that the object will be cherished and well kept, as discarding it would mean discarding the "happiness trigger" and the memory that is attached to it, and a sense of emotional loss would take over [28,43]. ...
Article
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The current patterns of production and consumption of clothes are known for their negative impacts on our planet, and the efforts towards a responsible fashion system must come from industry and users alike. Whereas the fashion industry may focus on achieving eco-efficiency, designers need to engage the wearers in long-term commitment with their clothes to counteract the ongoing increase of textile waste. However, current design strategies for product attachment have proven that it is difficult to succeed at this mission. In this paper we introduce the focus and theoretical framework of a research project that aims to study the relationship between wearers and clothes. We present our research perspective through a literature review that is supported by empirical testimonies of dozens of women, whose words illustrate the complexity of human relationships with garments. When we compare our connection with clothes to interpersonal love relationships, we find that the similarities are significant enough to justify a different approach in design practice, and we suggest a re-focus on the existing wearer–clothing relationships.
... While these six types of happiness-related symbolic meanings can be interesting to analyse existing products, they are too abstract to be applied as a source of inspiration in design processes. As a result, in their research Casais, Mugge, and Desmet (2015) uncovered sixteen design directions (table 1), distributed over the six symbolic meanings. Using a set of product examples selected by four experts in Design for Emotion and Well-Being, that were believed to be related to the six symbolic meanings, sessions with designers and design researchers were conducted to identify relevant design directions. ...
... Based on these insights, we believe that in order for designers to successfully use the sixteen design directions, these should be offered in a card set that provides optimal support for the design process. Table 1 Happiness-related symbolic meanings and respective design directions (Casais et al, 2015). This paper presents the development of the SIM toolkit for designers ('Design with symbolic meaning for user happiness'), focusing specifically on the SIM card set. ...
Conference Paper
Using design to improve the lives of people towards a positive flourishing state is the main premise of Positive Design. Our contribution to this growing field focuses on making use of the symbolic meaning that design can have to bolster human happiness. This paper presents the development of a card set for designers aiming to inspire design for happiness. The card set is explored in three sessions with groups of design educators, design students and design professionals respectively to collect diversified recommendations to improve its format and use. The resulting SIM toolkit for designers (‘Design with symbolic meaning for user happiness’), composed of a card set and a website, is disclosed and a workshop on how to use it is discussed.
... In this sense, materials influence this assessment, owing to sensory qualities, which are recognizable in the affective response of users, mainly due to external attributes, inherent to an expressive and formal scope [16]. This category of materials considers actions such as reducing, recycling and reusing material when the useful life of the product is ending [17,18]. The appearance of emerging materials offers the opportunity to achieve new experiences for users. ...
Conference Paper
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The current approaches referred to the design of new sustainable materials are related to the existence of a greater awareness of energy dependence and the unfavourable consequences for the economy. The objective of the research is to define a management model that provides parameters for the manufacture of sustainable materials made in the laboratory, based on household waste Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), applied to pavements for urban use. The methodology includes six stages for the creation of a management model that has as a case study a material designed with Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) waste, a 100% recyclable plastic that is mainly used in the manufacture of bottles: Identification of PET waste collection systems for home use, using territorial mapping software; Collection logistics; Distribution to the place of the processing; among others. The conclusions allow visualizing a management model that implies the coordination of actions between the cycles of waste deposit by users and the logistics of manufacturing and distribution with market projection. The results define the logistics and production process for the elaboration of a material made with PET waste, times, equipment, logistics and associated costs, which show data related to the viability of the proposal.
... Some studies aim to integrate design variables and consumer preferences with information on attitudes and demographics [8], space design [9], or product life cycle [10]. The dedication to designing positive experiences has been explored by various authors from academia and technology centers [11,12,13], addressing emotional, sensory and functional variables associated with the purchase decision, usability, acceptance of new materials and its integration in certain products and environments [14,15]. Researchers have explored the idea of how materials can be developed by integrating potential users in the design process, in order to increase the acceptance projections of new proposals in a market scenario. ...
Conference Paper
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This document reveals the results of a study carried out on forty-six Design and Innovation Master's students from Portugal and Chile, to discover the possible influence of demographic factors on the perception of emerging materials designed with household solid waste. The creation and application of new materials that contribute to the ecological transition are necessary and are being increasingly demanded by the manufacturing industry, which needs to communicate more environmentally friendly solutions to its customers. The objective of the study is to determine the influence of demographic factors on user acceptance of emerging materials made from household solid waste. The methodology considered the collection of information, through a self-applied questionnaire, with structured questions with semantic differential and Likert scale, adopting five attributes: ecological, cozy, attractive, luxurious, comfortable. Three prototypes designed based on eggshells, orange peel, and cardboard boxes in 300 x 300 millimeter sheet format were studied. The results indicate that the attributes perceived in each of the prototypes of new materials present significant differences in terms of the valuations associated with their perception. The conclusions are referred to the implications of demographic factors for the practice of design, whose knowledge can help the creative process, for a positive user experience.
... Hence, it is especially important to identify what triggers attachment in order to extend product durability (Mugge et al., 2010). In this regard, several studies have analyzed factors that influence attachment to a product, such as pleasure, satisfactory interaction, creating positive relationships, autonomy, and memory or memories, among others (Casais et al., 2015;Harmer et al., 2015;Ko et al., 2015;Mugge et al., 2010;Park, 2009;Van Weelden et al., 2016). In terms of providing pleasure, there are four types of pleasure that can be sought in products: physiological, psychological, social, and ideological (Jordan, 2000). ...
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Editor Managing Review: Xin Tong Funding information This work has been carried out thanks to the project with reference UJI-B2019-27 from the Universitat Jaume I. Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Jaume I. Abstract Despite the fact that one of the goals of the circular economy is that products can be used for as long as possible, existing data show that the number of years that small household appliances are used until they are replaced is not increasing and is even decreasing in some cases. This work focuses on product attachment as a strategy to slow down the replacement of the product and, consequently, to lengthen product life, thereby preventing psychological obsolescence. To this end, a representative sample of 70 small household appliances with attachment-related characteristics was analyzed to identify which of the 38 attachment strategies listed in the emotional durability design nine tools they contain. As a result, the most frequently used strategies are "design for animacy," "design for variability and modularity," and "connection or community belonging." Furthermore, 13 of the 38 strategies do not appear in this type of product and the strategies vary to a greater or lesser extent depending on the type of appliance. Therefore, there is still a lot of room at the design level to exploit attachment in this type of product, which could be very useful for business models based on life extension services. Moreover, the method applied to search for products on the web and to assign attachment strategies can also be used for other sectors and products.
... Los mercados incrementan un tipo de demandas de materiales, productos y servicios coherentes con las preferencias de confort físico y psicológico y, especialmente en este último caso, las percepciones subjetivas deberán ser cuidadosamente valoradas para prever y reducir las experiencias negativas (Kim y Christiaans, 2012;Hassenzahl et al., 2010). La dedicación a diseñar experiencias positivas ha sido explorada por diversos autores (Desmet et al., 2005;Fenko et al., 2016;Casais et al., 2015), abordando variables emocionales, sensoriales y funcionales, asociadas a la decisión de compra, usabilidad, aceptación respecto de nuevos materiales y su integración en determinados productos y entornos (Fenko et al., 2011;Crilly et al., 2004;Alarcón et al., 2021;Desmet y Pohlmeyer, 2013). Un tema fascinante y complicado es que las experiencias materiales no son absolutas. ...
Article
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The manuscript addresses the ideation of superficial appearances for emerging materials, taking as reference natural subjects of the plant world. The appearance of new materials offers the opportunity to achieve renewed experiences. The objective is to design appearances for predetermined substrates in the laboratory, assessing the contributions of surface design to the users’ perceptual construct. The methodology includes aspects related to bionics, selection and analysis of natural subjects; ideation of proposals; definition of substrates; prototype manufacturing; and user studies. The conclusions are oriented towards the implication of the natural referent in user evaluations, as well as the use of digital technologies in the ideation process.
... These approaches are insufficient if they do not generate relevance for the users. Design must account, therefore, for the human perspective and human emotions, becoming thusly more significant [38]. This relevance is fundamental for better human-product/human-computer relationships that result in longer-lasting designs that people want to care for and engage with, repair, reuse, repurpose, and (eventually) discard with respect [37]. ...
Preprint
Emotions are fundamental in people’s lives. Both positive and negative emotions are important because they create complex and rich experiences. Several strategies for designing with emotions have been explored from designing for meaning, to designing for pleasure or for rich experiences. While there has been a great focus on tangible products in emotional design, our increasingly digital lives make engaging users in these contexts essential. Rich emotional experiences are relevant for digital contexts because they help create more immersive and realistic experiences. Design that considers emotions is a design that becomes more relevant, and this relevance is fundamental for better human-product/human-computer relationships that result in longer-lasting designs with which people want to engage. In this paper, we define emotion and offer a panorama on the work that has been developed in the design field surrounding this concept.
... In the design literature, association and relationship-focused identification have long been considered to add value to user experience. Accordingly, several design strategies have been proposed (e.g., Casais et al., 2015;Mugge et al., 2008). For instance, how to use symbolic meaning of a product to influence users' behaviours. ...
Article
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This paper reveals how the patterns of positive user experience in relation to a product vary over the usage life cycle, from before purchase to disposal/repurchase, and in what way the positive experience interacts with demographic factors. As constructs of positive user experience, five attributes of positive user experience were adopted in the study: aesthetics; instrumentality; association; self-focused identification; and relationship-focused identification. Love letter, UX curve and retrospective interviews were used as methods. A total of 49 people participated in the study. The results indicate that the critical attributes of positive user experiences differed to a large extent according to the phase of product usage. However, these differences were not significant in terms of gender and age. Among the five attributes, instrumentality played a main role in positive experiences throughout the product usage life cycle, while the importance of the other attributes tended to decrease after first-time usage. The findings highlight implications for design practice that can aid the process of designing for long-lasting positive user experience throughout the product usage life cycle.
... Positive Design Framework has been complemented by studies in different areas related to the specific ingredients. Topics like positive emotions and its structure (Desmet, 2012;Yoon, Pohlmeyer & Desmet, 2016); the richness of negative emotions (Fokkinga & Desmet, 2012); dilemmas and self-control (Ozkaramanli, Özcan & Desmet, 2017); and the symbolic value of products (Casais, Mugge & Desmet, 2015) have been researched. Specifically, the mentioned research tackles the ingredients of pleasure and personal significance. ...
Article
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Virtue is a fundamental aspect of well-being. Past research has proposed that emotional-driven design can be a powerful mediator towards supporting virtue. However, virtue-focused solutions generally target isolated actions. Here, using saving as an example of virtuous behavior we present a design cas —Billy Cash, a digital piggy bank that allows users to reflect during the saving process and extend the appreciation of the purchased item—that aims to demonstrate how design can facilitate virtuous behavior that is sustainable and can promote actual change. Through the analysis and evaluation of the design case, we propose a framework of design for virtuous behavior. The framework sets a scenario for design interventions that contemplate virtuous actions to be transformed into virtuous behaviors mediated by the resignification of resources and stimuli behind the experience.
... A final contribution of products is that they can strengthen our awareness of one's past achievements or of one's progress towards a future goal. Someone may hold on to his worn-out dancing shoes because they serve as a tangible representation of his efforts to become a ballroom dancer (Casais, Mugge & Desmet, 2015). Likewise, trophies and souvenirs can serve as reminders of our past achievements, keeping these vivid by making them touchable and perceptible (Belk, 1988). ...
... It might be irreplaceable like a stuffed toy that has been at your side since you learned how to walk, it might be the brooch inherited from a deceased grandma, or it might be a Buddha statue that represents deeply felt spiritual beliefs. All of these objects illustrate examples of meaning attached to an object (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981;Fournier and Richins 1991;Casais et al. 2015). Such physical representations remind us of what, or who, is important to us. ...
Chapter
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What role does the design of products, services, and the built environment have on people's psychological well-being? This chapter introduces the emerging field of Positive Design, which studies the mechanisms and manifestations of design that stimulates human flourishing. After a brief account of research on Positive Psychology Interventions, this chapter examines the possibilities and limitations of design for well-being. It is argued that especially the enablement of pleasurable and meaningful experiences and activities in daily life is a promising approach. Four Positive Design examples related to taking notice and savouring are provided in order to illustrate new forms of Positive Psychology Interventions. These examples range from designs whose explicit core function is the promotion of well-being to common, everyday products that foster determinants of well-being as an additional effect. A number of challenges that Positive Psychology Interventions in practice currently face and the potential benefits of Positive Design are considered. In particular, this chapter discusses the strengths of Positive Design in terms of reach, adherence, and person-context-activity-fit.
... Although this may already give inspiration for design, it only provides rather abstract insights. To provide more specific insights on how to design for these six categories of meaning, further research developed concrete design directions for direct use in the design process (see Casais, Mugge & Desmet, 2015). Specifically, individual sessions with designers and design researchers were conducted, focusing on 5). ...
Conference Paper
Material possessions with happiness-related symbolic meanings can provide a contribution to subjective well-being (happiness), because they remind owners of memories, achievements, or aspirations. Such possessions provide an anchor for personally meaningful narratives, help in the construction and communication of self-identity, represent personal values and achievements, etc. Capturing this richness in a design process is challenging, because meaning is person and context-dependent, and the effects on happiness are subjective. In order to provide inspiration for designers to create products predisposed to symbolic meaning attribution, six happiness-related symbolic meanings were identified. Based on those, 16 design directions were developed. To communicate the six symbolic meanings and the 16 design directions, a toolkit for designers was created, composed of a deck of cards and a website. This paper serves as an introduction to a workshop where the toolkit is applied, and it explains the process and the rationale behind the card set and website that make up the toolkit.
... A list of topoi is provided in Casais and Desmet's writings on design strategies. 41 Based on analysis of existing products, they propose a list of values to be explored by designers. They describe these in terms of symbolic meaning. ...
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Extending product life by introducing symbolic meaning References Products that go round: Exploring product life extension through design
  • M Casais
Casais M. et al. Extending product life by introducing symbolic meaning References Bakker, C. A., Wang, F., Huisman, J. & den Hollander, M. C. (2014). Products that go round: Exploring product life extension through design. Journal of Cleaner Production, 69(April), 10-16.
Extending product life by introducing symbolic meaning Possessions and the extended self
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