Decontaminating experiences with circular offerings

Abstract

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 contaminated interaction. Strategies were identified through an exploration of possible solutions to negative ontamination in two phases. Phase I involved identifying 70 existing solutions to instances of negative contaminated interaction and abstracting these to identify a more fundamental underlying principle. In Phase II, designers participated in a brainstorming session to identify as many solutions as possible to several contaminated interaction design briefs. The resulting 155 solutions were analysed together with the other data to generate a final set of strategies. In the end, eight strategies distilled from the analysis which are used to address contaminated interaction. The strategies represent preventative and responsive solutions applicable to various elements of the contamination process.