Empathic Design helps to solve the problem of the lack of sustainability in the world today. Sustainability is not a technical problem, it is driven by a pattern of thinking and behavior. This is where empathic design comes into play. Product attachment theory talks about when consumers become emotionally attached to products, they tend to keep them longer which is more sustainable.

I found the activity we did in class to be very interesting. We had to list what the oldest item we owned was and explain why we still owned it. Most everyone said they had some sort of emotional attachment to their item. This emotional attachment is what lead them to keep their item over the years. This was a perfect example of product attachment theory.

I also gained a lot of insight from the design probes assignment. Through the use of design probes, a designer can capture information from places where a typical researcher wouldn’t be able to go. I thought that the most beneficial part of using design probes was that you could find out more things than the participants would typically tell you. By interpreting the meaning of the information gathered, designers can gain insight into consumer’s day-to-day life and better design for their wants and needs.