Embedding sustainability in design education: the case of design project on systemic changes for sustainable businesses based on upcycling

Sustainable design education has become a prevalent practice in design education. Ramirez’s (2007) worldwide survey shows that the majority of the programmes have either compulsory or optional modules on sustainable design. In particular, projects in sustainable design studio modules often deal with social or environmental sustainability issues with little attention to the practice of design for systemic changes for sustainable businesses. This paper aims to provide one such case: design project on how to scale-up sustainable businesses based on upcycling through systemic changes. A half-day student design workshop was co-planned and organised by De Montfort University and the University of Liverpool. Second-year undergraduate students in Industrial Design, University of Liverpool participated as part of Product Development 2 module. Throughout the workshop, participating students learned different approaches to sustainable design, production and consumption, challenges faced by upcycling-based businesses in the UK, and how to generate and develop ideas, concepts and system maps to resolve complex design problems involving multiple stakeholders

Positive User Experience over Product Usage Life Cycle and the Influence of Demographic Factors

This paper reveals how the patterns of positive user experience in relation to a product vary over the usage life cycle, from before purchase to disposal/repurchase, and in what way the positive experience interacts with demographic factors. As constructs of positive user experience, five attributes of positive user experience were adopted in the study: aesthetics; instrumentality; association; self-focused identification; and relationship-focused identification. Love letter, UX curve and retrospective interviews were used as methods. A total of 49 people participated in the study. The results indicate that the critical attributes of positive user experiences differed to a large extent according to the phase of product usage. However, these differences were not significant in terms of gender and age. Among the five attributes, instrumentality played a main role in positive experiences throughout the product usage life cycle, while the importance of the other attributes tended to decrease after first-time usage. The findings highlight implications for design practice that can aid the process of designing for long-lasting positive user experience throughout the product usage life cycle

Predictors of Upcycling in the Highly IndustrialisedWest: A Survey across Three Continents of Australia, Europe, and North America

open access articleUpcycling, as a way to reutilise resources, offers a promising alternative to production and consumption based on virgin materials. Despite the growing academic and industrial interest in recent years, there is a lack of large-scale cross-country or cross-regional studies that systematically investigate influencing factors for consumer upcycling behaviour. By drawing on social psychological theories of interpersonal behaviour and planned behaviour, this study investigated predictors of upcycling behaviour in five highly industrialised countries of three continents: Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, and USA. Results showed that intention and perceived behavioural control (confidence in abilities) were the most important factors for upcycling. Theoretical and practical implications from this study are discussed in the context of efforts to scale up global upcycling

EmotionPrism: a design tool that communicates 25 pleasurable human-product interactions

The range of positive emotions experienced in human-product interactions is multifarious. Differentiating positive emotions (e.g., joy, love, hope, and interest) and having an awareness of associated expressive interaction qualities (e.g., playful, careful, persistent and focused interaction) can support designers to influence users' interactions in a favourable way. This paper introduces the development and application of EmotionPrism, a tool for designers to gain a better understanding specific positive emotions and related expressive interaction qualities. EmotionPrism is a collection of movie-sets that represents 25 different positive emotions in dynamic hand-object interactions, combined with theoretical descriptions of the emotions. Designers can use the tool to envision and discuss what kinds of interactions would be appropriate or desirable to incite and to select a set of relevant positive emotions accordingly by referring to the set of information as a repertoire to choose from. The paper first describes characteristics of positive emotions with a focus on expressive behaviour and then discusses considerations for the tool development. The second section reports the process of developing the tool. Thirdly, we present the results of a design workshop in which the tool was used and evaluated

Positive Emodiversity in Everyday Human-Technology Interactions and Users' Subjective Well-Being

This paper investigates the effects of experiencing diverse positive emotions in technology use on users' well-being, referred to as positive emodiversity. We examined technology's role in facilitating positive emodiversity and well-being through a questionnaire study (N = 116; 580 example cases), in which three sources of emotions were considered: technology as an object, instrument, or enabler. Further, we evaluated how technology-supported hedonic and eudaimonic pursuits are associated with well-being. A regression analysis showed that increased positive emodiversity leads to increased well-being (p<.001). The effect was predicted by the three sources and both hedonic and eudaimonic pursuits. When engaged in positive activities enabled by technology, users experienced more diverse positive emotions, increasing their well-being. The study offers new understandings of the relationships between technologies, emodiversity, and well-being, and provides evidence that designing for a wide diversity of positive emotions, as opposed to generalized pleasure-displeasure distinction, can enrich users' experiences, enhancing their well-being

Designing for positive upcycling experiences with people’s well-being in mind

People’s usual anticipation towards material consumption is that it pleases us, yet consumption experiences are not always pleasurable nor give us long-lasting positive emotional experiences. People sometimes regret their purchase, or the pleasure from material gain may wear off quickly, which does not make people happy in the long run. We propose that upcycling as a do-it-yourself experience could be a promising pathway for individuals to gain long-lasting happiness (throughout the positive experiences in the process of upcycling) as well as resulting outcomes of upcycling which could facilitate further positive use experiences and special meaning (e.g. contributing to reducing negative environmental impact). This chapter introduces how researchers and practitioners in service or experience design and development could use positive emotional granularity (PEG) in order to design for positive upcycling experiences that contribute to people’s well-being

Design for Breathtaking Experiences: An Exploration of Design Strategies to Evoke Awe in Human–Product Interactions

From looking up at a skyscraper to the Grand Canyon’s vastness, you may have experienced awe in one way or another. Awe is experienced when one encounters something greater or more powerful than themselves and is associated with prosocial behavior through a diminishment of self-importance. In design research, most studies on awe have been conducted in lab conditions by using technologies such as virtual reality because of its efficiency to simulate typical awe-stimulating conditions (e.g., nature scenes). While useful in inducing awe and assessing its effects on users, they give little guidance about how design can deliberately evoke awe. Most attempts focus on the response of awe instead of its eliciting conditions. With an aim to support designers to facilitate awe, this paper explores design strategies to evoke awe. Based on appraisal theory, the cause of awe was formulated, and its relevance to designing for awe was investigated. The conditions that underlie awe in design were explored through a survey in which participants reported 150 awe experiences, resulting in six design strategies. The paper describes these strategies and discusses how they can be used in a design process, giving attention to addressing the experiential value of awe

Behavioural Intervention Technology in UX Design: Conceptual Review, Synthesis, and Research Direction

The notion of Behavioural Intervention Technologies (BITs) has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners creating design and technology to support users??? behavioural change processes. However, the value of consolidating previous findings to connect insightful research and practical design works and generating new knowledge on BITs has been under-recognized in the design community. To support researchers and practitioners who struggle with creating human-centred BITs to effectively induce changes in human behaviour, this paper investigates existing literature on BITs through a systematic literature review with28 selected publications. From this literature review process, this paper proposes a structured synthesis of extant perspectives and approaches, offering an overarching perspective for effective applications of the BIT design approach. At the end of the paper, these findings are extended to discuss further research and implementations of design practices for changes in human behaviours