Addressing Psychological Needs in Designing for a Sustainable Circular Economy

Approaches and methods on designing for a sustainable circular economy are developing solutions for sustainable development. For such solutions to succeed, market and social acceptance of circular products and services must improve. Currently, there is a mixed reception among consumers and hence a stagnating market share of circular solutions. In this chapter, the authors discuss these limitations and relate them to psychological aspects of consumer and user experience and behavior. Research on user experience and experience design has delivered theories, approaches and methods on how to design for people as they experience and behave in the world. One core finding is that psychological needs play an important role in human-product interaction. The fulfillment of such needs results in positive experiences, and can raise acceptance of products and services. We illustrate how psychological needs can be addressed in a sustainable circular design. They present a fictitious case to illustrate how specific non-instrumental qualities of offerings can address psychological needs and hence fundamentally influence overall judgments and behavior in interaction with sustainable circular solutions. Finally, we discuss how such needs-based experience design can be implemented in design processes.