VALUE IN PURCHASE, USE, AND DISUSE

Creating value for users is one of the central concerns of user-centered design. However, what exactly constitutes user value and how design can contribute to its creation is not well known. Based on an ethnographic study on user’s value assignment to kitchen appliances, this paper examines at what stage the notion of value is formed in user-product interaction. The findings suggest the traditional marketing view of value as an assessment of monetary worth for the features obtained in the purchase situation is not an adequate projection that design can build on. Instead, users assess value in product in (1) pre-purchase and purchase, (2) use, and, (3) dispossession and disuse situations. How users define value in each situation, what product properties become salient in signaling value at each situation, and how users’ immediate and socio-cultural context plays out in value formation is analyzed. The implications for design practice are also discussed.