LEARNING RESOURCE
Repair & Upgrade
INTRODUCTION
Products like electronics have components that can fail, or need
to be upgraded, well before the rest of the product needs to be
replaced. Millions of pounds of electronics are scrapped every
year. Repair and upgrade can address this e-waste problem by
extending your product’s useful life and slowing down the rate of
disposal.
PRODUCT AND USER FOCUS
The most important things for designing for repair and upgrade is
a clear design intent and an understanding of user behavior.
Repair and upgrade is easier when your product’s components
are easier to disassemble and access. It’s most important to
allow easy access to the components most likely to break or need
maintenance.
| academy.autodesk.com
This isn’t a new idea: until recently, almost everything was
designed to be repaired. Materials and energy are used to make
each thing we manufacture, and so making things last longer has
a real environmental benefit.
USE A MODULAR APPROACH
No matter how easy your product is to repair, it’s hard to keep it
from becoming obsolete as new technologies roll out. You can
intervene by designing your products to be easy to upgrade. One
key approach is to use a modular product architecture that makes
it easy to swap out components. This gives users flexibility and
allows for product extensions you can’t even see coming yet.
Clear instructions are very helpful, but it’s also important to think
about how someone could make sense of your design without
detailed instructions.
IMPROVING PRODUCT LIFETIME: REPAIR & UPGRADE
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