Title: The influence of user characteristics, product characteristics and context in everyday design behaviour

Authors: Soyoung Kim; Henri Christiaans; Chajoong Kim

Addresses: Department of Design, UNIST, Ulsan 44919, South Korea ' Department of Design, UNIST, Ulsan 44919, South Korea ' Department of Design, UNIST, Ulsan 44919, South Korea

Abstract: As the world is increasingly aware of the necessity to contribute to a sustainable future, the concept of eco-design has considerable influence on the attitude of designers. Under such circumstances, this study considers how to extend the life of a product through everyday design (ED): the redesigning by users of their existing everyday products into products with a new or similar function. For the study, 100 female and male participants aged between 20 and 80 years were interviewed with his or her reused ED product. Looking at the user, product, and context as triggers of everyday design, the results show that both context and product characteristics play a dominant role. The study results in an overview of the factors that might trigger everyday design among users, the understanding of which can be integrated into new designs to extend the products' life cycle.

Keywords: everyday design; product reuse; sustainability; affordances; upcycling; user behaviour; appropriation; user creativity.

DOI: 10.1504/JDR.2020.115936

Journal of Design Research, 2020 Vol.18 No.3/4, pp.137 - 172

Received: 28 Apr 2020
Accepted: 21 Aug 2020
Published online: 05 Jul 2021 *

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