Product Longevity

Tim Cooper advocates a move to reusing products and parts of products and thus, increasing the product life span. Cooper (2005, p63) identifies that - "A deeper exploration of consumer values and attitudes is needed to understand how people might reduce their desire to acquire more possessions and, instead, increase their attachment to those that they currently own.

Cooper, T. (2005) Slower Consumption - Reflections on Product Life Spans and the "Throwaway Society", Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9(1-2), 51-67.

Desmet & Hekkert (2007) consider how products are experienced and claim to have developed a framework of product experience, based on theories from psychology. They use core affect theory to organize product experience into 3 levels - aesthetic pleasure; attribution of meaning and emotional response. Their concepts of attribution of meaning and emotional response have important implications for the development, or otherwise, of attachment to a product.

Desmet, P & Hekkert, P. (2007) Framework of product experience. International Journal of Design, 1(1), 57-66.

Schifferstein et al have also investigated product attachment. They concluded that "If a designer wants people to become attached to his/her product, the present study suggests that s/he should facilitate ways to form associations between the product and people, places or events (memories), or s/he should design a product that evokes enjoyment." (Schifferstein et al, 2004, p330)

Schifferstein, H.N. J., Mugge, R. and Hekkert, P. (2004) In McDonagh, D., Hekkert, P., Van Erp, J. and Gyi, D. eds. Design and Emotion: The Experience of Everyday Things, Taylor & Francis, London,  317-321.