The Disassembly Map: A new method to enhance design for product repairability

Designers and engineers need better tools and methods to create highly repairable products. Design for disassembly and reassembly is an important product related design feature that can enhance repair. In a highly repairable product, the components that fail most often should be easily accessible for repair or replacement. This paper...

Faults in consumer products are difficult to diagnose, and design is to blame: A user observation study

The process of fault diagnosis is an essential first step when repairing a product: it determines the condition of the parts and identifies the origin of failure. We report on how product users go through the process of fault diagnosis in consumer products and the influence of design features on this process. Two groups of 12 participants were...

Practices of fault diagnosis in household appliances: Insights for design

Fault diagnosis is the process of identifying and characterising a fault when a failure occurs. It is, therefore, an essential step to take before product-repair. In this study, we ask how conventional users diagnose faults in household appliances and how the design of these appliances facilitates or hampers the process of fault diagnosis.To...