I agree that we could all keep our products a little – or a lot – longer. To do this, businesses would have to figure out how to continue making a mint selling us services instead of products. When this happens, more durable products will be more profitable. Until then, it won't make sense for anyone wanting to remain in business to make stuff that lasts. Here's why:
Highly durable, well-designed products can be sold at a premium to a customer base that (hopefully) will be quite pleased with your product. So pleased, in fact, that they don't need to buy anything else from you for quite some time. Since your products will be more expensive than the "average" offerings many potential customers will instead prefer to buy your product used and not from you. In time you'll be competing with products you sold long ago. This can kill a company. An example: Leica Camera sells superbly crafted, highly durable cameras but only captures about 20% of the worldwide market for Leicas. The other 80% is captured by individuals and dealers selling used equipment. [1]. Selling "the very best, most durable product" will not sustain your business unless you are a small company that doesn't need to grow, in a growing market with few or no competitors. I would much prefer it if everything I used made to last, possible to repair, useful for years on end and a pleasure to use. I'm sure the planet would benefit from this as well. Therefore I try to make services instead of products when I can, but it's a complex task. For a nuanced, detailed and readable discussion on how we can create services instead of products and create a more sustainable outcome, I highly recommend John Thackara's book "In the bubble: designing in a complex world" http://www.amazon.com/Bubble-Designing-Complex-World/dp/0262201577 http://www.thackara.com/inthebubble/ My hat's off to the IDSA for creating the Designer's Accord and I'm going to spread the word about it at our UXnet meetings here in Oslo. - Fredrik 1. From a quote by Leica Camera CEO Steven K Lee in Leica Fotografie International magazine ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
