Designing the used

Abstract

Refurbishment is a critical strategy in the circular economy (Bocken et al., 2016). Despite the environmental and financial benefits, refurbished products are not a popular consumer choice (Mugge et al., 2017). Refurbished products are seen as old, used and of low quality, and consumers worry that products are contaminated with traces of a prior user (Mugge et al., 2017). This lack of consumer acceptance is perceived as too risky for companies to make the financial investments needed for refurbishment. In theory, refurbishment can be implemented in any product category. But, not every product category is equally popular. Partly due to the lack of consumer interest, the refurbishment of personal care products remains unexplored (Mugge et al., 2017). Because of this, many products and components go to scrap before the end of their functional life. To exploit this potential, consumers need to see the value of refurbished personal care products. To this end, this project has aimed to explore ways for designers to enhance the consumer acceptance of refurbished products through product design. This raised the question of how hygiene perception influences the will to buy refurbished. Hygiene is related to the consumer’s fear of contamination. Consumer interviews suggest that hygiene is mainly perceived in relation to complexity. Features like buttons, small corners, and split lines negatively influence the refurbished product’s acceptance. This suggests that product complexity negatively affects the perceived ease of cleaning. Findings also show that the colour white and smooth surface finishing are favourable for a refurbished product due to their associations with hygiene and medical products. From this research, it can be stated that improving the hygiene perception will cause a slightly increased willingness to buy refurbished. The research findings led to the following conclusion on the influence of design aesthetics on the acceptance of the refurbished product: ‘Aesthetics influence the acceptance via associations but will not be the deciding aspect for solving the overarching societal problem that stands in the way of refurbished product acceptance; misconceptions about refurbishment’. That does not mean that aesthetics have no influence at all. Creating positive associations through aesthetics can increase the willingness to buy refurbished (Huang et al., 2020). This project concludes that, for the Lumea, especially associations with luxury, hygiene and durability positively influence the acceptance of the refurbished product. Based on this redesign process, it was concluded that design for refurbishment is not a quick fix or stand-alone design activity. It is a mindset best developed through experience. Every product and context is unique. There are no guidelines or rules to follow, which apply in every situation. The proposed skills for designers to incorporate the refurbishment design mindset are (1) consumer empathy, (2) product lifetime management and (3) ecosystem thinking. To help designers to develop these skills, a tool was created in the shape of a canvas. Each box on this canvas focuses on a different aspect of refurbishment, ranging from the different consumers in different lifetimes to ideation on aesthetics features and concerns.