The Design of Everyday Life [Paperback]

How do common household items such as basic plastic house wares or high-tech digital cameras transform our daily lives? The Design of Everyday Life considers this question in detail, from the design of products through to their use in the home.
Drawing on interviews with consumers themselves, the authors look at how everyday objects, ranging from screwdrivers to photo management software, are used on a practical level. Closely investigating the design, production and use of mass-market goods, the authors offer new interpretations of how consumers' needs are met and manufactured. They examine the dynamic interaction of products with everyday practices.

The Design of Everyday Life presents a pathbreaking analysis of the sociology of objects, illuminating the connections between design and consumption.

This book uses the everyday artifact to break new intellectual ground for consumption studies, design analysis, and the field of material culture. Based in close empirical observation of social practice, it helps bring a new sociology of the artefact into being. It is creative, fresh, and original. Harvey Molotch, New York University

Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University.
Matthew Watson is Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at Durham University.
Martin Hand is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queen's University in Canada.
Jack Ingram is Professor of Product Design at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, UCE.

1. Designing and Consuming * 2. Consumption and Competence: DIY Projects * 3. The Dynamics of Appropriation: Reproducing Digital Photography * 4. The Material and Culture of Plastic * 5. The Political Economy of Design and Value * 6. Objects, Practices and Processes * Conclusion