Product care describes consumers' activities to prolong the lifetime of a product, such as repair, maintenance or careful handling. By keeping the product in a functional state, replacement can be postponed. Previous research has identified eight design strategies that can foster product care among consumers. To use these design strategies to their full potential, a deeper understanding of their effectiveness is needed. The current study aimed to evaluate the design strategies with consumers. We conducted interviews with 15 consumers and discussed the effectiveness of our strategies for product care in the consumers’ daily life. Results indicate that the effectiveness of our strategies varies over products and product categories. A combination of strategies seems to be the most promising approach for fostering product care among consumers. Our research contributes to the scientific knowledge by providing deeper insights into the conditions under which design strategies for product care are most effective.@en

Background: Taking care of products is a relevant approach to prolong products’ lifetimes and retain their desired level of performance, and is thus an important aspect of sustainable consumer behaviour. Although consumers have a general motivation to take care of their products, previous research has shown that they struggle to repair, maintain or treat their products carefully in daily life. Design has the potential to increase consumers’ product care activities, but designers need more knowledge and distinct strategies to evoke this product care behaviour with consumers. Methods: By the means of a multi-method approach—individual and group brainstorming sessions as well as an analysis of existing solutions—we created a large number of ideas on how to stimulate product care among consumers. Results: We were able to summarize these ideas in a clustering session into eight strategies and 24 sub-strategies that can foster product care through design. These eight strategies are: social connections, informing, enabling, appropriation, control, awareness, antecedents & consequences, and reflecting. The integration of the consumer perspective into strategies for product care extends currently known design strategies for repair and maintenance. To support designers in the implementation of these strategies, we developed a toolkit that can be used in the product development process of different product categories. Conclusions: This paper identifies product care strategies that have a distinct focus on the consumers’ perspective of sustainable behaviour and that can be stimulated through design. These rather psychologically-driven strategies thereby complement existing technology- and product-oriented design strategies. Furthermore, to facilitate implementation, a design toolkit has been developed that points to key requirements in practice.

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Product care is defined as all activities initiated by consumers that encourage an extension of product lifetimes, such as repair, maintenance, and/or careful handling. A product care scale was developed and validated in a set of four related studies. In study 1, we asked experts to examine the face validity of a set of 35 items. In study 2, we reduced the initial set of items to 10 items using exploratory factor analysis. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-factor solution. Study 3, a nomological network study, demonstrated that the construct measured by our scale is related but still distinguishable from existing concepts, such as frugality, use innovativeness and attachment towards the product. Study 4 was a known-groups test with participants from two different countries and with various previous experiences in repairing. The final 10-item product care scale includes three factors: relevance, easiness and positive experience.

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Product care is defined as all activities initiated by the consumer that lead to the extension of a product’s lifetime. It includes repair and maintenance, as well as preventive measures or general careful handling of a product. Product care is one way to extend a product’s lifetime, as it keeps the product in a usable and maintained state for a longer period of time, thereby postponing its replacement. An issue with product care is that it heavily relies on consumers’ behaviour once the product is in use. Therefore, the main research question of this thesis is: How can design foster product care among consumers? We present the current state of product care among consumers, a scale to measure product care, and design strategies to foster product care. In addition, we explore product care in access-based product-service systems. Using the insights identified in this PhD project, designers can create and redesign products in such a way that care activities will be more likely to be performed.@en

Product-service systems are circular business models that can potentially extend product lifetimes and reduce resource consumption. However, consumer product care is crucial in these business models. We explore consumer product care of newly bought, second-hand, and accessed bicycles and washing machines through an online survey (n = 212). Our analysis shows lower consumer product care of accessed products compared to ownership. Three strategies could address this; design for care, design to reduce the need for care, contractual conditions to stimulate care or penalise the lack thereof@en

Taking care of products is an important aspect of sustainable consumer behaviour, because it is an appropriate approach to prolong products' lifetimes. Although consumers in general agree on this and demonstrate a general motivation to take care of their products, previous research has shown that they struggle to repair, maintain or treat their products carefully in daily life. Design has the potential to increase consumers' product care activities, but more knowledge and distinct strategies are needed by designers to purposefully design for this behaviour. We used three different approaches – a workshop with design students, an analysis of already existing products and services that have implemented aspects of product care, and an ideation session – to create eight strategies and 24 substrategies that can stimulate product care through design. These eight strategies are informing, enabling, social connections, appropriation, control, awareness, antecedents & consequences, and reflecting. To support designers in the implementation of these strategies, we transferred these strategies into a toolkit, which can be used in the product development process of different kinds of products. This paper describes the development of the product care strategies as well as the Product Care Toolkit.@en

Product care is defined as all activities initiated by the consumer that lead to the extension of a product's lifetime. This research contributes to the literature by taking a consumer's perspective on product care, which is essential to postpone product replacement. We used Fogg's behaviour model as a theoretical framework to understand consumers' motivation, ability and triggers related to product care. Based on this, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted to explore consumers' current product care behaviour. Our findings show that many consumers are generally motivated to take care of their products, for example because they appreciate the product's functionality or because they are generally keen to consume in a sustainable way. They even have the right knowledge and tools or are at least motivated to get them. What is often missing are triggers that push people to take care of their products. Triggers can increase consumers' motivation or ability, for example by giving necessary tools to the consumer or by a helpful service offer. We also give suggestions for the practical implementation of our findings to support companies interested in a shift towards the Circular Economy.@en

The aim of this PhD project is to understand and enhance consumers’ repair and maintenance activities. We define this behaviour, aimed at prolonging products’ lifetimes, as product care. For designers, it is important to understand consumers’ perspective on product care and to identify reasons why consumers either do or do not take care of their products. Only by doing so, can appropriate products and services be designed in the future. This PhD project first explores current product care behaviour and the individual tendency of persons to take care of their products. Afterwards, suitable design directions to enhance product care are developed and evaluated for multiple product categories. Based on the insights from this PhD project, designers can adjust their design in such a way that care activities are more likely to be executed.

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To contribute to a more sustainable way of consumption, products should stay usable as long as possible. Therefore, it is necessary to take care of products. Product care should be understood as any action that helps prolonging the lifetime of a product, such as maintenance, repair etc. These product care activities can be conducted by the consumer or by a service. Our interview study helps to understand consumers’ current product care behaviour towards products of different categories. Our study is based on Fogg’s behaviour model, which states that motivation, ability and triggers have to be present at the same time to lead to certain behaviour. We were able to identify different motivators (e.g. pleasure, price, functionality), ability factors (e.g. tools, time and effort) and triggers (e.g. appearance triggers, social triggers) for product care. Based upon the findings of this study, strategies that enhance product care are suggested and relevant aspects for future research are proposed.@en