Will be published in the Proceedings of Design and Emotion conference
1-3 July 2002 Loughborough, England
Meaningful Product Relationships
Katja Battarbee and Tuuli Mattelmäki
University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland
INTRODUCTION
Designing new products requires understanding the use of current products. The
same applies for designing for experience. Especially for the consumer sector, also
emotions need to be engaged and meanings tied in with the product and its use.
Design for experience, going beyond usability, requires treating the user
holistically (Jordan, 2000, Sanders and Dandavate, 1999) as a feeling, thinking, and
active person. Experience is not only found in Disneyland, it is inherent in all
interaction, fluctuating between levels of subconscious, conscious and meaningful
stories (Forlizzi and Ford, 2000).
Although products are produced for masses, they must be designed for
individuals. Partly the need for designers to conduct research has risen from the
opinion that marketing data alone is not enough to fuel design. Rather, it is
necessary to become exposed to real people and real contexts as leading user
research and human factors people advocate (Segal and Fulton-Suri, 1997). The
empathic understanding of people (Dandavate et al 1996) can be partly supported
by stories through which people convey their attitudes and relationships to objects.
This empathic understanding the existing meaningful relationships with products
can be used for designing produts that deliver satisfaction on many levels.
This paper presents a tentative framework of meaningful relationships with
products. The three main categories are described with examples, and compared to
existing approaches to meaning and product experiences.
MEANINGFUL PRODUCT RELATIONSHIPS
People express values and attitudes – their selves - with the kinds of products they
select for theirselves, their home, and their environment. (Csikszentmihalyi and
Rochberg-Halton, 1998). Objects of choice carry personal meaning. The intensity
of meaning can vary over time and over products. A coffee maker can be valuable
in daily rituals of waking up or meeting friends. A modular sofa may become the
most important part of a family being together, always rearranged and repaired.
Childhood toys may be forgotten, and rediscovered in adulthood.
In this study we set out to collect stories about meaningful products in
order to look at meaningful product relationships from a design point of view. The
following relationship categories have been analysed from 113 stories and essays
collected in Finland in 2001 from young adults but also from children, middleaged, and elderly. The categories have been developed in an iterative analysis
process. The product relationships fall into three main categories (see Figure 1):
meaningful tool, meaningful association, and living object (term borrowed from
Jordan, 1997). The examples are edited and translated from the original essays and
stories.
Meaningful Tool
Meaningful Association
facilitator
challenge
self expression
identity, style, taste
link to memory, person,
emotion, story
Living Object
Figure 1: Meaningful Product Categories
Meaningful tool
The tool is needed for a purpose, in which the activity itself, not the hardware, is
meaningful to the person. However, the hardware is necessary and an integral part
of the experience. In this relationship the product could at any time be replaced
with a similar or better tool. The relationships below have different emphases:
functionality and usefulness, learning, and creativity and enjoyment.
Facilitator: These products help in satisfying needs of all levels: e.g. safety,
mobility, indepence, social, and in accomplishing things.
”You can hardly call a pale blue and squarish hair brush case pretty, but
because of its size and function it has become a very important thing for me.”
(foldable hair brush)
”Indoor hockey has been a part of my life for 8 years, for that reason the
stick has been and still is very important, for without a stick you can’t play
floorball unless you are a goalie.” (Indoor hockey stick)
”8th grade excited me. In just the first few days I got lots of new numbers,
new friends, and even met some girls. I found my first real girlfriend and fell
in love. It was wonderful... And then came the phone bill. I saw the sum, I
was in panic. How could I ever get that much money... Then I got a sms from
my girlfriend, who told me it was all over. So glad you have a phone, makes
this easier, she said.” (mobile phone)
Challenge: Some objects pose challenges where we have to invest time, money,
effort and attention to learn and master a skill or to care for the tool.
”A snowboard is like a new car to an old man. You fix it up, maintain it, care
about it… Your safety in the slopes also depends on the condition of your
board” (snowboard)
” I plugged in the loudspeaker, sat down, turned the volume up and hit the
strings full force. The sounds were nothing like the ones I had imagined. I
turned the volume down and imagined new, wonderful sounds, then tried to
play them, but no success. I put the guitar in the corner and crawled onto my
bed to think. I almost cried. It was weeks before I touched it again. The same
experience repeated itself.” (electrical guitar)
Self Expression: We use our skills with objects for purposes of creativity,
productivity, and self-expression.
”I learned to seek comfort, to work through my unhappiness and rage,
celebrate happiness, express my emotions.” (piano)
”Although it is not a fine sewing machine, it has become important to me.
One reason is to be able to have unique clothes. But my most important
reason for sewing is to relax from school work… You can forget depressing
things and focus on something you really enjoy. You can also show that you
are creative in at least something.” (sewing machine)
Meaningful Association
In this relationship, products are meaningful because they refer to or carry a
meaning given by culture or an individual. Cultural meanings are understood
similarly by the majority of people in the same community (although their
preference for these meanings may be different). Personal meanings are constructed
through experiences, and products are associated with them. All these products
represent or refer to something outside the product itself.
Identity: personal, cultural, professional identities are conveyed with professional
tools, clothes, and other symbolic products. Brands can be important, but so can be
the choice to avoid them. Self-made objects reflect skill, style, interests, and
accomplishments.
”That muff was given to me by my mother, who thought that I was the only
one of us five children who had the courage to wear it. That started my
interest in furs, which I, as a native Vyborgess, have adopted as belonging to
the Vyborgian sense of style.” (fur muff)
Style, taste: aesthetic appreciation of beauty and senses is manifested in choice of
products, brands, furnishings, fashion, environment, and objects of appreciation
and collection, such as art and design pieces.
”We still have in our living room a green, fiberglass chair, the ”Pastilli”. It
was bought in the 60’s and it was probably designed by either Tapio
Wirkkala or Timo Sarpaneva, I am not sure. When I saw it in the office
furniture shop window, I fell in love with its shape and colour.” (Pastilli
chair)
Link to a Memory, a Person, an Emotion, a Story: Objects remind us of past
events and experiences, of people or family in general, and bring forth emotions
connected to particular memories, objects, smells, materials, appearances. These
memories may be communicated as stories.
”We had lots of brass music at our scout events. The Finnish flag was
carried in with a fine sentimental fanfare. Sometimes someone who could
play well would make music at the campfire. The evening and morning calls,
played so beautifully, have stayed in my heart all these times.” (trumpet)
”A baby hat, with blue and white stripes, worn by three boys. I’ll never give
it away… it was the first thing I bought for my baby. There it waits on the
cupboard shelf, to be taken out, us admiring its tiny size, and remembering
the time I came home five months pregnant with the first thing for the baby.”
(baby hat)
”The ring is not worth much in money, but nothing can measure its
emotional value. Money can’t buy the smiles, tears, whispers and promises
we made as we planned our wedding together…” (wedding ring)
Living object
In this relationship an emotional bond is created between the person and the
individual product. The product is a companion, that has been with a person for so
long that is is perceived as having personality, soul, character, is loved and cared
for. It has a personal history of how it was made, aquired, and how it has survived.
It may have identifying marks of use, wear and repair.
”I imagined I was inside my car. We would drive along the floor, avoiding
chair legs and other things, racing around, a bump in the rug as our garage.
Tyly was like a friend, always ready for an adventure.”(toy car)
”My most important toy is a bunny, and there’s one thing about it: sometimes
I think it is real. Bunny is important because I can talk to it. Story: when I got
it I felt like it had been made just for me. I was five years. I slept, ate, did
everything with it.” (stuffed toy bunny)
”I practically lived by the furnace, endlessly throwing in wood and pulling
out hot ashes. Later the furnace was replaced with an oil-burning one, a
boring, low, cylindrical shape. I never developed the same sweaty, sooty,
warm relationship with that as with the old Heureka IV, which I took care of
for almost 20 years.” (wood burning furnace)
COMPARISON TO PARALLEL RESEARCH
Our study had a similar aim to the research described by Csikszentmihalyi and
Rochberg-Halton (1981). They interviewed 315 people in Chicago about things in
their homes and concluded that people invest phsychic energy into objects because
they are expressions of the self. Their 20 product categories are accurate for
classifying comments but from a design point of view that is too many to be
practical in use.
Holman’s (1986) five categories of object relations increase in intensity. From
existing in the background, objects can mediate interactions, enhance actions,
express identity and topmost, be objects of emotions like a loved person. True,
most objects are around waiting to be useful, but we disagree on that intensity
increases directly as proposed - there are too many interpersonal differences.
Richins (1994) has a broader approach and divides meanings into private and
public. The sources of meaning are in Utilitarian value, Enjoyment,
Representations of interpersonal ties, and Identity and Self-Expression. This
relatively similar categorisation leaves out the ”companion” category, and proposes
enjoyment as a separate one. Her paper also presents a thorough analysis of
approaches to product meaning and value.
CONCLUSIONS
The relationships are built over time and the richest descriptions were of objects
with a long history. People have many, overlapping relationships to meaningful
objects at the same time. For example: the guitar looks cool, sounds good, it lends a
rock’n’roll image, it facilitates playing in a band, it poses a challenge for learning
to play, provides a medium for expressing feelings through music, it becomes a
friend and companion, reminds of people, places, events, accomplishments. No
new, better guitar can replace the very first one.
What is meaningful to us depends on our life situation. Teddybears are loved by
small children, but for a teenager a mobile phone is a symbol of independence and
a tool for contacting friends. Ten years later a baby’s pram can be most important,
and in old age things that remind of family and represent continuation can be most
meaningful.
Design does not happen in a vacuum. While other techniques contribute to
other aspect of the holistic picture of the user, stories of products can be used as a
way to empathically understand people and their values as expressed through
products. Stories of meaningful product relationships can provide a deeper,
personal understanding of the existing value context for designing new
technologies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our thanks to Anu Kankainen for working on the pilot, Riitta Nieminen-Sundell for
participation in collecting and analysing the stories, Ilpo Koskinen, Turkka
Keinonen, Esko Kurvinen and the reviewers for good advice, and all the
respondents for the stories.
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