Psychologically Durable Design – Definitions and Approaches

Abstract

This paper provides a definition of 'psychologically durable design' and clarifies its relationship to 'emotionally durable design'. Psychologically durable design, not the least in the form of 'emotionally durable design', has emerged as an important means to ensure more sustainable designs, since many types of consumer products are often replaced before their physical function is compromised. However, there are still no exhaustive answers as to how to create more psychologically durable products, nor detailed definitions of psychologically durable design. To address this issue, this paper provides such a definition in terms of durable instrumental, hedonic and symbolic value. On this basis, the paper defines four types of durable product relationships, of which only two are related to 'emotional durability'.

Linking product design and durability: A review and research agenda

“…Product design strategies in this topic target sustainable behavior ( Hebrok, 2014 ), consumption psychology ( Xu and Xiong, 2008 ), promoting more conscious consumer behavior, challenges and strategies for repeat purchase, low-involvement products ( Kunamaneni et al., 2019 ), guidelines for influencing consumer's perceptions of consumer durables through product appearance ( Mugge et al., 2018 ), consumer expectations for product lifetimes ( Oguchi et al., 2016 ), affective design ( Agost, 2020 ), and resilient design ( Haug, 2018 , 2019 ). Recent research has determined and analyzed the response of consumers to circular products (reused, refurbished, remanufactured) ( Pretner et al., 2021 ; Sabbaghi and Behdad, 2017 ; Wallner et al., 2020 , 2022 ).…”

Slow design : Creating long lasting consumer product relationships

“…This research is currently scattered, however, and uses different concepts to focus upon. Product durability (Haug, 2018;Sun et al, 2021), product longevity (Armstrong et al, 2018;Haines-Gadd et al, 2018;Jensen, Laursen, Haase, & Klemes, 2021), emotional durability (Haines-Gadd et al, 2018;Ji & Lin, 2022;Kam, 2022), resilient product design (Haug, 2018), affective design (Agost & Vergara, 2020), psychologically durable design (Haug, 2019), life extension practices (Corsini, Gusmerotti, & Frey, 2020;McNeill et al, 2020), product lifetimes (Bakker, Mugge, Boks, & Oguchi, 2021), product care (Ackermann, Mugge, & Schoormans, 2018;Ackermann, Mugge, & Schoormans, 2022;Ackermann, Schoormans, & Mugge, 2021;Ackermann, Tuimaka, Pohlmeyer, & Mugge, 2021), and long-lasting products (Frahm, Laursen, & Tollestrup, 2022) are some examples of the terminology used to examine whether a consumption society can become more sustainable by motivating consumers to make use of their owned products for a longer period of time before discarding the product. It should thereby be noted that this does not include alternative consumption behaviors such as sharing (Belk, 2010;Belk, Eckhardt, & Bardhi, 2019), donating (Sarigollu, Hou, & Ertz, 2021), collaborative consumption (Belk, 2014), servitization (Kanatli & Karaer, 2022), redistributing behaviours (Sarigollu et al, 2021), reselling (Sarigollu et al, 2021), or renting products (Amasawa, Shibata, Sugiyama, & Hirao, 2020;Graul & Brough, 2021).…”

Aesthetics of Sustainability: Research on the Design Strategies for Emotionally Durable Visual Communication Design

“…These factors were considered as the criteria for sustainable design. Over the past 33 years since the concept of sustainability was put forward, scholars and designers have increasingly applied the concept of sustainable design in different aspects of design research and design practices, such as design innovation on product's spatial, technological, and social relevance [23][24][25], the extension of product's lifecycle [2,4,[26][27][28][29][30], simplification of sustainable behavior [31] (pp. [120][121], brand sustainability [10,[32][33][34][35][36], sustainable packaging [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44], and visualization of material sustainability [31] (pp.…”

“…[120][121], brand sustainability [10,[32][33][34][35][36], sustainable packaging [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44], and visualization of material sustainability [31] (pp. [26][27].…”