Psychology in product design

Nowadays products almost always consist of combinations of material artefacts and immaterial services or even experiences. Product-service systems such as DriveNow are exemplary of this trend, and even purely non-digital products (e.g., beach towels) are often promoted and experienced in an extended, digital way, through, for example, their web presence. As a consequence, experiential value becomes an increasingly important aspect of product development and business success, and psychology plays an increasingly important role in product design. This applies especially to the digital domain, where interactivity and technological progress provide opportunities for new business models and approaches to marketing. In this chapter, the authors discuss the increasing importance of psychology in product design and particularly in the domain of interactive products, its interplay with a more general experiential shift in product design and marketing, as well as challenges and insights from a methodological perspective. They conclude with a short summary and discussion of future steps for product design in the context of economic psychology.