Title: Product personalisation using personally meaningful data and the creation of new product attributes

Authors: Cay Green; Sam Porter; Guy Bingham

Addresses: Design School, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK ' Design School, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK ' Design School, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract: Some additive manufacture processes can be used to fabricate personalised products. Commercial companies have formed that exploit this fabrication potential, creating co-design environments that allow users to personalise and customise product geometry in new ways. Work carried out at the intersection of art and design takes this a step further, exploring ways in which objects form can be transformed using complex data sets. Interactions that facilitate product personalisation (PP) using data that is meaningful to the owner could stimulate the formation of product attachment, which in turn could extend a products lifespan. However, this new PP potential could lead to the formation of new product attributes that must be mediated by both the designer and the user. This paper explores examples of product/data synthesis and uses them to propose three product attributes that could result from data-driven PP: abstractness, visibility and obtrusiveness.

Keywords: additive manufacturing; co-design; digital data; product attachment; product design; product lifespan optimisation; product personalisation; product geometry; product attributes; personalised products.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRAPIDM.2017.082151

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing, 2017 Vol.6 No.2/3, pp.170 - 184

Received: 20 Apr 2016
Accepted: 10 Oct 2016
Published online: 08 Feb 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article