The opportunities different cultural_Spencer et al.pdf (516.4 kB)
The opportunities that different cultural contexts create for sustainable design: a laundry care example
journal contribution
posted on 2015-06-01, 15:51 authored by Jak Spencer, Debra LilleyDebra Lilley, Samantha PorterIncreasing economic growth coupled with rapidly expanding populations in developing countries has led to the emergence of a large "consumer class". This rapid increase in consumption has altered household consumption behaviour and resource use, often adversely affecting their environmental footprint. There is, therefore, a pressing need to understand the effect culture has on product interactions, particularly when designing new products and systems for emerging markets. This paper presents the findings of an in depth user study which set out to explore the effect of culture on household resource use. In depth, qualitative user research was undertaken into the laundry procedure in three regions. In-context interviews, observations and household tours were carried out in 19 households across three sites; The East Midlands, UK; Curitiba, Brazil; and Bangalore, India. Findings show significantly different behaviours in washing techniques, routine, consumption patterns and aspirations. The results inform the development of a methodological cultural resource as well as set of 7 design guidelines to understand the effect of designing interventions for sustainable behaviour in different cultural contexts.
Funding
Many thanks to Santander and the Design Research Society for supplying the funding for the research trips to Brazil and India.
History
Published in
Journal of Cleaner ProductionVolume
107Pages
279 - 290Citation
SPENCER, J., LILLEY, D. and PORTER, S., 2015. The opportunities that different cultural contexts create for sustainable design: a laundry care example. Journal of Cleaner Production, 107, pp. 279-290.Publisher
© Elsevier LtdVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2015-04-13Publication date
2015-04-30Notes
This article was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production [© Elsevier Ltd] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.04.082ISSN
0959-6526Publisher version
Language
- en