Decontaminating experiences with circular offerings

Keeping a product offering in the system through continued use and between multiple users creates the potential for interactions which become contaminated. These contaminated interactions can cause a barrier to material circulation and extended product lifetimes. This study seeks to identify the underlying design strategies useful in addressing...

Pleasantness and arousal in twenty-five positive emotions elicited by durable products

This study reports quantitative research into two basic dimensions of emotions: pleasantness and arousal. Fifty-nine participants evaluated these two dimensions for a set of twenty-five positive emotions in relation to human-product interactions. Three levels of arousal were iden- tified: ‘exciting’, ‘median’ and ‘calm’. Nine emotions were found...

How users experience great products

This study reports qualitative research about how users experience great products. Eighteen interviews were conducted in which participants were asked to bring along a ‘great’ product that they own. During the interviews participants explained why they consider a product great and how they experience it. The experiences were categorised in two...

Tapping into past design experiences: Knowledge sharing and creation during novice-expert design consultations

Designing is a knowledge-intensive activity. For novice design engineers, an important means of acquiring knowledge is to consult experienced colleagues. We observed novice–expert consultations as part of three engineering projects in a large aerospace company. Seven meetings were analysed in detail regarding the design activity, the content,...

An Approach to Embody Personality in Product Appearance

Durable products are often described by users relying on personality traits, e.g. serious or happy. Understanding the relationships between product attributes and personality traits has the potential to influence product consumption. This article explores the possibility of designing product appearance with predefined personalities. An approach...

Novice-Expert Design Consultations: Findings from a Field Study

This study aimed to investigate the process of novice-expert consultation meetings in an organizational context by identifying phases of the discourse and analysing the nature of these phases. An empirical study was performed at Rolls-Royce Aerospace Engineering by capturing 7 audio-records of meetings between trainees (novices) and expert...

Novice–expert consultations as a vehicle for organizational learning - a field study in engineering product development

Product development is a knowledge intensive activity and organizational learning across projects and functions is vital for its success. This paper explores novice–expert consultations as a vehicle of social learning through a detailed analysis of meetings during an engineering training programme. Although the meetings were initiated for the...