Products that Last starts where most books on product development end. This new edition (first self-published by the TU Delft) contains new examples and insights from recent publications. From the perspective of designers and entrepreneurs, once a product has been designed, produced and sold, it disappears beyond the newness horizon. They are little aware of the opportunities that exist in the next product universe, where money is made from products in use, as well as from a product’s after...

Designers solve problems. Ideas and problems change, however, and new techniques and materials are invented, new production methods are developed. Designing is a process of trial and error. During the development process, designers will think up solutions or part solutions for the problems that they have been presented with. They do not know if this solution will work. Therefore, they will try out their solution, for instance using a test model or a scale model: trial. Sometimes, the solution...

This thesis argues that in order to increase the likelihood that product lifetime extension in a circular economy will be successful from both an environmental and an economic perspective, industrial designers need to be able to control not only the spatial dimension (materialization and geometry) of products, but also their temporal dimension. This temporal dimension is related to the number and duration of product use cycles and the duration of the total product lifetime. To enable industri...

Why do some products become beloved while others are quickly forgotten? Design profoundly shapes our lives, often in unnoticed but significant ways.

Every design—from simple everyday products to complex systems and services—elicits emotions that influence our decisions, behavior, and well-being. Yet, the emotional dimension of design remains underexplored, leaving a wealth of opportunities untapped.

This book addresses this gap, revealing how designers can harness emotions to create pro...