MSc. Design for Interaction
Graduation Thesis
Aug 2022- Feb 2023
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft, Netherlands
In collaboration with Sustainability, Innovation and Co-creation IKEA NL
External collaborations with Blue City, Buurman, United Repair Centre
10 million tonnes of furniture are discarded by EU Member States each year
(Forrest et al. (2017)
Changing policies to enable customers’ Right to Repair furniture
(Current Right to Repair Policy)
Customer’s motivation to be more sustainable and use their belongings for longer
(Based on prior research at IKEA and validated through the research conducted as part of this project)
Project Statement
Valuable resources are discarded on a daily basis, in the form of home furniture. Tonnes of prematurely disposed, functional and repairable furniture is often destined for landfill or incineration, with small proportions recycled. The emergent sustainability needs of the planet, and changing policies for repair of consumer products, drives the home furnishing company IKEA to explore repair as a circular strategy to enable prolonging the life of IKEA furniture. This project explores the context of repair at IKEA and is focused on the use-life of furniture, in people’s home.
Research Question
How can repair (initiatives) enable IKEA and customers to prolong the life of damaged IKEA products?
Approach for participatory research + design
Stakeholder Research with IKEA
Interviews and desk research: Global and other country perspectives
In-store Front Days: Recovery Hub and Customer Relations
Co-creative Inquiry: Store Co-workers from Recovery and Sales
User Research with IKEA customers
In-store Interviews: To identify motivation and challenges to repair home furniture.
Survey: Investigate attitude towards and the ability (and resources) to repair home furniture.
Co-creative Inquiry: To investigate specific challenges, actions and ideas/ needs to repair home furniture.
Co-creative, Collaborative, Iterative
Co-creative sessions with IKEA stakeholders and customers
Creative Inquiry and ideation session with customers (in store)
Co-creative steering session with IKEA services stakeholders
Creative Inquiry session with IKEA store co-workers
Recovery Hub at IKEA Barendrecht
User interviews and From days Analysis (Miro)
User Sessions
Customer Personas
The non-repairer is not willing to learn how to repair. Barriers such as lack of time, value for convenience or quality of repair may prevent people from repairing themselves. In terms of repair behaviour, while non-repairers may have the motivation to repair, extremely low perceived ability factors such as less time, high perceived effort, etc. prevent them from carrying out repair activities by themselves. Convenient and accessible professional repair services can trigger non-repairers to get their furniture repaired.
The solitary repairer, likes to repair, has the tools for this practice but does not wish to share their knowledge. They may also be grounded in practical knowledge of working with and in specific materials like wood, with cherished tools, and exhibit an appreciation of both materials and tools, referred to as the Craft consumer by Gregson et al., (2009). The solitary repairer has high interest and motivation for repair, and usually owns the resources and has the knowledge required to carry out repairs. Provision of required spare parts and materials for furniture repair, can sufficiently aid them to carry out their own repairs.
The holistic repairer, already identified as a resource in their community and neighbourhood, is ready to help and pass on skills. The friend or relative one calls for advice and help when something breaks down. The holistic repairer maybe motivated by a general attitude of repairing products and has the resources and ability to repair.
The militant repairer is involved in ‘third places’, such as repair cafés and makers’ spaces, that actively promote and undertake repair activities. Sufficiently motivated and able, the militant repairer even triggers others to repair, through actively sharing knowledge of repair amongst community members and neighbourhood.
Diverse forms of repair and reuse initiatives can benefit from representations and segmentation of customers for repair. Gobert et al., (2021) outline 5 such representations (Figure 3) based on customers’ commitment to repair – their appetite for repair, willingness, or unwillingness to share repair knowledge and know-how and the ability to manage repair, recovery, or remodel of objects.
The occasional repairer is in search of skills. While motivated, they lack the ability to repair. They may lack the tools, resources or knowledge and skills for specific repairs. Interventions to offer visible and easily accessible resources and knowledge for repair, can aptly trigger occasional repairers to carry out repairs.
In the context of repair at IKEA these capture personas for expert collaborations
In the context of IKEA the solitary, occasional and non repairers aptly capture customer personas to target for repair interventions
Customer Journey for home furniture repair
Customer Perspectives on repair
Customer challenges with repairing home furniture
Customer needs and values with respect to repair of home furniture
Opportunities and Interventions at IKEA, for the many customers of IKEA
2 Concepts to enable IKEA customers to repair their home furniture
Do-It-Together
Do-It-Yourself
Design & research outcome: In-store creative repair workshops
Textile Repair Workshop with Evelyn
Textile Repair Workshop with Evelyn
Wood Repair Workshop with Buurman
Wood Repair Workshop with Buurman
Textile Repair Workshop with United Repair
Textile Repair Workshop with United Repair
Draft Poster that didn't fit IKEA's style!
Evaluation of in-store workshops to inspire and enable creative repairs.
Project Links:
https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A569173fd-7afd-463b-954f-d69e59f42bde
References:
Aggarwal, A. (2023). Participatory Research and Design for Repair of customers’ IKEA furniture: Prolonging the life of IKEA furniture through Creative Repair.
Forrest, A., Hilton M., Ballinger A. & Whittaker D. (2017, September).Circular economy opportunities in the furniture sector. https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Report-on- the-Circular-Economy-in-the-Furniture-Sector.pdf
Gobert, J., Allais, R., & Deroubaix, J. F. (2021, October). Repair and reuse: Misalignments between stakeholders and possible users. Journal of Cleaner Production, 317, 128454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128454
Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A., & Crewe, L. (2009, June 15). Practices of Object Maintenance and Repair. Journal of Consumer Culture, 9(2), 248–272. https://doi. org/10.1177/1469540509104376