Choreographing Obsolescence - Ecodesign: the Pleasure/ Dissatisfaction Cycle

77-81
The paper extends three aspects of my previous research: a focus on user research and innovation, environmental concerns and affective sustainability. In exploring the connection between product longevity and human responses, it establishes a framework for enhanced product design.
The research reported commenced with a literature review of obsolescence and pleasure of ownership and drew on recent studies of extended product use. It then examined how obsolescence has been manipulated for commercial purposes. The long term environmental deficiencies of this strategy are identified, together with taxonomies of use and remedies in the form of ‘built-in longevity’. This alternative approach to product design resulted in a model of pleasure-in-use against time in relation to the product use lifecycle. The model can be used within the product design process to aid decision-making on specification and appearance and anticipated length of use.
The Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces conference (DPPI) is one of the major international forums driving research into design and emotion. The paper was peer reviewed and as a consequence of its judged quality I was invited to be a conference session chair. The paper subsequently formed the basis of an invited lecture to the Semiotic Product Functions Project (SeFun) at the invitation of its director Professor Vihma, Academy of Finland for which I became international advisor.