PRODUCT REPURPOSING: TYPOLOGY AND DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

Abstract

Product repurposing is a self-serving, self-rewarding sustainable behavior. It has been around ever since people began to create and acquire objects. However, very few studies have been conducted on product repurposing, and there is no typology of it in the literature. The aim of this study is to systematically classify the types of product repurposing and provide illustrating examples. Then based upon the developed typology, the corresponding design considerations that would enable, facilitate, and encourage users to perform this practice will be identified and mapped against the product repurposing types. To reveal the underlying types of product repurposing, a comprehensive analysis of a myriad of successful Do-It-Yourself (DIY) repurposing projects has been conducted. For categorization, two dimensions were considered: the modification to the product form (or the lack of it) and the approach to product transformation in terms of integration with other products or components (or the lack of it). The crossing of those two dimensions (Modification and Combination) produced four distinct types of product repurposing: Unmodified-Solo, Modified-Solo, Modified-Combined, and Unmodified-Combined. The repurpose-enabling design considerations were found to be, chiefly, Material, Affordances, Modularity and Ease of Disassembly, and User-product Attachment. These considerations were then mapped against the four repurposing types, and a conceptual framework was produced. It is important to note that this study is limited to End-of-Life individual scale repurposing and to Design for Open-ended Repurposing strategy. The presented typology is exhaustive and the first of its kind. The typology, coupled with the identified design considerations, would greatly assist designers in developing repurpose-enabling products.