Sustainability considerations on effective use of resources for small household appliances

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2014

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Oğur, Dilruba

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The use phase of many products’ lifecycle has significant impacts on the environment that are largely determined by the use behaviour. Yet, those impacts mostly remain unnoticed, since individuals are unaware of the potential environmental consequences of their everyday practices and interactions with products, and have insufficient means to find them out. This study explores and examines use patterns and behaviours throughout the use phase of the small household appliances, particularly electric tea makers and contact grills, with an emphasis on effective use of resources, and incorporates this knowledge for the development of sustainability considerations. In this regard, the study adopts a usercentred research approach and includes a series of user observations, interviews and generative focus group sessions to have a comprehensive understanding of the problem areas for effective use of resources. The conclusions and insights from the study contribute to the development of sustainability considerations and design directions for reducing resource consumption during the use phase of household appliances. The results of the study also suggest a new design strategy, namely eco-engage, for incorporating these considerations into product design for sustainability.

Subject Keywords

Household appliances., Consumer behavior., Industrial design., Product design.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12617936/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/24124

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

D. Oğur, “Sustainability considerations on effective use of resources for small household appliances,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2014.