Högskolan i Skövde

Things thrill and delight, but also elicit frustration. To take experiences into consideration in product development there is a need to identify what they are directed at and what elicits them, i.e. their objects and antecedents. Self-reports collected from 51 participants covering 298 examples of emotions with things were analysed in order to identify what people find significant in experiences with every day products. The object of reactions and judgements was frequently something beyond the product and participants also described use, ideas and events as significant. In many cases the reported experiences focused on situations and events rather than the product as such. While use, ideas and events all constitute antecedents of experiences, they can also become objects of experiences at certain points of time and it may be possible to scaffold for them in design.

Products help people act, but also thrill, excite, and elicit fear, joy and anger. Artefacts are a natural part of people’s everyday lives, sometimes associated with values, dreams and aspirations. While traditional user-centred approaches have focused on efficiency and effectiveness of use, injury prevention etc. new approaches focusing on product experience have emerged. However, while increased attention is being paid to the experiential side of goods and services there remains a need for knowledge and methodology with which to address experiences with things, especially with regard to elicitation, specification and evaluation of requirements. This project has therefore taken an exploratory qualitative approach, aiming to elucidate what it is that people find significant in experiences with products. 159 participants in six different studies have shared descriptions of experiences with things. The studies have come from different perspectives, triangulating data collected in individual and group interviews with self-reports. The analysis indicates that things often matter not in terms of their mere presence or physical properties, but by standing out from expectations, requiring attention or referring to some idea. Often the significance of products lay in the role(s) they play in events, and the perceived impact the thing has on the person’s ability to realise motives. While only a fraction of all experiences with things could be prescribed in product development it is possible to scaffold conditions that increase or decrease their likelihood. Three perspectives that could potentially be addressable in development work are: significant things and associated meanings, significance in use and significance of consequences beyond use. These imply somewhat different objectives for design and different needs for knowledge. User experience is not a property or quality of an artefact, but a perspective that can to some extent be addressed by enabling developers to identify requirements and align their understanding with what users find significant.

Purpose – Product-service systems (PSS) could potentially benefit consumers, but empirical studies of business-to-consumer PSS solutions have been scarce. The purpose of this paper is to identify conditions for consumer acceptance, and propose a methodology for PSS development. Design/methodology/approach – Factors influencing consumer acceptance of PSS are investigated through focus groups and individual interviews, and elaborated in relation to theory from user acceptance and innovation adoption literature. Procedures for conceptual development of PSS are then proposed, based on methodology adapted from user-centred design. Findings – The two factors “impact on everyday life”, and “uncertainties” in anticipating such consequences were repeatedly brought up by participants. PSS affect consumers through practical implications for the activities they engage in. This goes beyond the service encounter, is highly complex and case specific why development processes should include iterative studies with consumers. Research limitations/implications – The studies use hypothetical PSS offers. Validation and refinement of the proposed methodology would require application in commercial development projects.Practical implications - The proposed methodology is expected to support requirements elicitation, and facilitate early stages of PSS development.Originality/value - This paper presents empirical findings regarding consumer acceptance, and provides a detailed analysis of factors that are central to PSS acceptance. It also introduces methodology for description and analysis of the complex consequences a solution may have from a consumer perspective.

Experiences gain increasing attention in design research, but theories are inconsistent, and the foundations of different methods are rarely discussed. Design research has sui generis no fixed epistemology, and is open to methodological eclecticism. However, as paradigms successively change from positivistic towards more comprehensive views, discussions on how underlying theoretical assumptions influence approaches are needed. This paper examines and compares axiological, epistemological and methodological aspects of two perspectives: Kansei engineering, and a postmodernist framework. Both frameworks aim to match designers' conceptions of product symbolism etc. to those of the user group, but they evolve from different theoretical starting points. Analyzing the contents of underlying theories and their influence on methods and expected results is an important part of theory development that may also support designers in making methodological choices.

In the product development work, differences in language, education and cultural thought worlds influence actors’ view of the product. Drawing on personal construct psychology, this paper investigates differences in how triads of products are distinguished from each other to reveal the usage of constructs depending on disciplinary belonging. The study identifies some differences in the use of constructs between human factors specialists, industrial designers and engineers.

Inspired by George Kelly’s method for eliciting constructs this study addresses meanings ascribed to products. 49 participants were interviewed using Kelly’s construct elicitation procedures, showing triads of products. The results highlight methodological issues in capturing meaning with products. Kelly’s approach has the benefit of not relying on predetermined scales and highlights a need to consider a syntactical dimension. Reasoning along the lines of Kelly’s constructive alternativism we need to look at the variety constructs that may be applicable to a product. However the approach of using triads may be beneficial also in studies resting on other theories.