This issue is about agathonicity—the quality some stuff has of growing better with age and use. This is a design property that should be of great value especially for the design of products, yet is increasingly sacrificed in the throwaway culture that we have evolved. But where does agathonicity come from?
I suggest seven mechanisms that generate agathonicity at the level of the object, the user, the context, and the function:
- Object: The object changes by losing information such that what remains is better suited to the use.
- Object: The object changes by accumulating information such that what it becomes is better suited to the use.
- Object: The object changes by selectively losing bad/irrelevant information and gaining good/relevant information, thus becoming better suited to the use.
- Function: The object remains unchanged, but use and user action changes how its function is perceived by users.
- Context: The object remains unchanged, but use changes the context so the object is more adapted to it.
- User: The object remains unchanged, but use changes the user to be a better user of the object by understanding its affordances better.
- User: The object can either change or remain unchanged, but the user’s perception of it changes by discovering new affordances.
(These would be good mechanisms to use as a basis for designing better products.)
You can find it here: #38: Agathonicity