Sustainable Design Considerations for Product Personalisation Adopting Half-Way Design Approach (1)

Abstract

Product personalisation can potentially prolong product lifetimes by fostering product attachment, which can result in care behaviours such as maintenance and repair. To contribute to environmental and social sustainability, personalisation strategies should also incorporate local production methods, local materials and skills, support re-use and upgradeability of product parts, and enable evolving products. This study focuses on half-way design approach, which facilitates personalisation while embedding these sustainability principles. The study employs research through co-design methodology that integrates a co-design process into the research through design process and explores sustainable design considerations for product personalisation. Two design scenarios, enabling affordability through re-use and empowering craft skills, were developed considering diverse target user groups' personalisation goals. Based on these scenarios, two diverse half-way lighting design explorations were developed as generative toolkits. Adopting co-design process, various participants personalised these generative toolkits in two connected generative research studies. In the first study, sustainable design considerations were identified, which informed the refinement of both the generative toolkit and research design for the second study. Further personalisation of the second generative toolkit revealed new insights in this second phase. The paper reveals key dimensions and design considerations for sustainable product personalisation adopting half-way design approach within the context of lighting design.