Free UX design patterns for the circular economy
The customer experience in the circular economy should be just as great as experiencing the environment it protects: joyful and effortless. The Circular Experience Design aims to improve the customer experience in the circular economy. It uses proven methods of user experience design (UX), customer experience design (CX) and service design to support people with tasks that go beyond “consuming” a product.
What is Circular Experience Design?
Circular Design focuses mainly on products, materials and processes. That’s good, because that is where the heavy lifting needs to be done. But humans will also play a pivotal role in making the circular economy work. Circular Experience design addresses their new tasks and roles in a new economy.
To make the circular economy work, people need to think of a product not as as a “consumer good”, but as a service and material warehouse. They need to take care of their products better and maintain and repair them the right way. Components need to be exchanged to add new features and to extend the lifecycle.
When people increasingly use products as a service by renting or leasing, manufacturers keep ownership of their goods and have an economic interest in building them for durability and designing them for low maintenance and easy repair. Customers become “stewards” instead of owners, and they need to be supported in this new role.
Instead of selling new stuff to people periodically, brands that go circular need their customers to build long and meaningful relationships with their products. This is a game changer for marketing, but also a pivotal opportunity for brands to build continuous relationships with their customers. That relationship needs to be designed well.
At the end of life of a product, customers need to return its components and materials back into the cycle in the right way instead of wasting them. They need to be supported with this task. And they should also benefit from the value they helped to preserve.
Explore and use
The circular-experience.org library offers 72 free UX design patterns for the circular economy, helping to accelerate the adaption of circular products by customers and lower the costs for companies and experience designers developing them.
The patterns cover all stages of the circular user journey, from alternative circular offers in the purchase of products to assisting customers with repairing and reselling their products.
If you are a company offering circular products and service to customers who are having difficulties in understanding or using your service, you can contact the CIRX team directly to design solutions together.
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Article source & images: circular-experience.org
Video: CIRX Youtube
