Contaminated by Its Prior Use: Strategies to Design and Market Refurbished Personal Care Products.

Refurbishment is an effective circular strategy to lengthen a product's lifetime. However, refurbished products that are intimately used, such as personal care products, cause a feeling of unease in consumers because they are perceived to be contaminated. In 15 in-depth online interviews with female users of intense pulsed light (IPL) device living in the Netherlands, we explored why consumers have contamination concerns regarding an IPL device and proposed strategies to decrease these. Participants felt that refurbished personal care products with signs of wear-and-tear were a riskier choice and expected that the device would malfunction, have a shorter product lifetime, and would be contaminated due to the previous use. Based on the location and amount of wear-and-tear, participants made inferences on how the prior user had treated the device. While light wear-and-tear indicated normal use, heavy wear-and-tear was interpreted as a sign of bad treatment by the previous user. To keep refurbished personal care products at their highest value, we suggest five design strategies to minimize contamination concerns by designing a product that smells and looks hygienic after multiple lifecycles: (1) using colors that evoke associations with hygiene, (2) making signs of wear-and-tear less visible, (3) using smooth (cleanable) materials, (4) minimizing the number of split lines in the product, and (5) giving refurbished products a clean product smell. For refurbished personal care products with signs of wear-and-tear that cannot be eliminated, we propose mitigating consumers' contamination concerns with marketing strategies, such as fostering a good brand image, offering refurbished products at a lower price, with an extended warranty, and underlining expert check-ups and standards during refurbishment.

Too good to go? Consumers' replacement behaviour and potential strategies for stimulating product retention.

Many products are disposed of before they have reached the end of their functional life. New technological developments and trends in fashion seem to accelerate consumers' replacement of products. From an environmental perspective, such early replacement is undesirable. In this paper, we emphasize that product replacement is not only based on rational decision making. Emotional, functional, social, epistemic and conditional values can influence the value trade-offs that consumers make during the decision to either retain an owned product or replace it with a new one. Several strategies are discussed that can increase the owned product's values and stimulate retention via product attachment, sustaining aesthetic value, stimulating product care and maintenance, and enabling upgradeability.

Safety in passenger ships: The influence of environmental design characteristics on people's perception of safety.

Although objective safety is a widely studied topic in ergonomics, subjective safety has received far less research attention. Nevertheless, most of human decision-making and behavior depends on how we perceive our environment. This study investigates the effects of various environmental design characteristics on people's safety perception in a passenger ship context. Five different environmental design characteristics were manipulated to increase the openness of the space or to create more clear navigation, resulting in 20 different cabin corridors for a passenger ship. Ninety-seven respondents were asked to rate these corridors on the perceived safety in an experiment. The results showed that people feel more safe when the corridors have a curved ceiling, when the walls do not have a split-level design, and when there is a view to the outside. Designers can use these insights when designing future environments.

Washing when the sun is shining! How users interact with a household energy management system.

To make optimal use of sustainable energy, domestic electricity consumption should shift to match local supply conditions. Energy management systems (EMS) are a new sustainable technology that can help to disrupt consumers' habits concerning electricity consumption, whilst reinforcing desired behaviours. This research examined the factors that influence the likelihood that people will shift their electricity consumption to match sustainable supply. Twenty-one interviews were conducted with households who had used the EMS 'Smart Wash' for several months. The findings showed that the likelihood of behaviour change is influenced by a combination of the user's motivation, specific contextual factors and the design of the EMS. Based on these results, several recommendations are given for the future design of EMSs. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: Energy management systems (EMS) are a new technology that encourages people to shift electricity consumption to match local solar supply. Interviews among users of an EMS showed that the likelihood of behaviour change is influenced by the combination of the user's motivation, contextual factors and the EMS design.

Product design and apparent usability. The influence of novelty in product appearance.

This research enhances our understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and usability by investigating the effects of novelty in product appearance on the apparent usability of a product. In two experimental studies using washing machines and digital cameras as stimuli, we systematically manipulated the level of novelty (low vs. high) in the product appearance by changing the product's color or shape. Participants were presented with one of these product appearances and a list of the product's technical specifications. Next, participants indicated how difficult or easy they expected the usage of the product to be. Our findings demonstrate that because people associate a high level of novelty with technological advancement, novelty in a product appearance negatively affects their expectations of a product's usability at the point of sale. Furthermore, novices are more likely to use the level of novelty as a cue for a product's apparent usability than experts.

Aesthetic appraisal of product designs: independent effects of typicality and arousal.

Theories differ on how typicality and arousal influence aesthetic appraisal and whether these processes together interact or have independent effects on aesthetic appraisal. This research investigates the simultaneous effects of typicality and arousal on aesthetic appraisal for product designs by manipulating both processes separately: typicality by prototype deviation and arousal by colour saturation levels. We demonstrate that typicality has a curvilinear relationship with aesthetic appraisal. Additionally, arousal has a positive linear relationship with aesthetic appraisal of product designs. Moreover, arousal can influence aesthetic appraisal independent from typicality.

The importance of being 'well-placed': the influence of context on perceived typicality and esthetic appraisal of product appearance.

Earlier findings have suggested that esthetic appraisal of product appearances is influenced by perceived typicality. However, prior empirical research on typicality and esthetic appraisal of product appearances has not explicitly taken context effects into account. In this paper, we investigate how a specific context influences perceived typicality and thus the esthetic appraisal of product appearances by manipulating the degree of typicality of a product's appearance and its context. The findings of two studies demonstrate that the perceived typicality of a product appearance and consequently its esthetic appraisal vary depending on the typicality of the context in which the product is presented. Specifically, contrast effects occur for product appearances that are perceived as typical. Typical product appearances are perceived as more typical and are more esthetically appealing when presented in an atypical context compared to when presented in a typical context. No differences in perceived typicality and esthetic appraisal were found for product appearances that are perceived as atypical.

Using an indentation measurement device to assess foam mattress quality.

Foam mattress quality affects pressure ulcer risk but no reliable method to assess mattress fatigue and indentation is available. To ascertain Indentation Quality values of standard 14-cm (5-inch) foam mattresses after 15 years of use, a convenience sample of 50 visco-elastic foam mattresses from a total of 1,000 same-brand mattresses used in a Dutch University hospital was tested using a durometer. Indentation Quality values were obtained on the mattress cover at a relatively unloaded zone (corner), at the head and heel zones, the knee and shoulder areas, and in the middle (buttocks area). Indentation Quality values ranged from a mean of -11.91 mm (+/-2.58) in the unloaded zone to a mean of -26.96 mm (+/-4.31) in the middle zone (buttocks area, P <0.001 compared to all other mattress areas). The value at the relatively unloaded zone was significantly and positively related to the values at the head and the heel zones (r = .70, P <.01) and the knee and the shoulder zones (r = .33, P <.05). The value at the buttocks zone was positively related to the value at the knee and the shoulder zones (r = .35, P <.05). The study showed that mattresses that appeared similar had a wide range of indentation values (indicating a need for individual assessments to monitor their quality) and that Indentation Quality values, determined using the durometer, facilitate objective and quantifiable mattress assessments. Consideration of the consequences of foam mattress life span on quality of care, hospital management practices, and cost analysis is justified.