Product Analysis

Taking an existing product apart, either physically or on paper, tells a designer more about the decisions behind it than any description of it will. C3.1 covers the forms of analysis used to do that, and how the findings are fed back to manufacturers, to users, and into the next version of the product.

C3.2 stretches the same analysis across the entire life of a product. A life cycle analysis accounts for the energy and material consumed at every stage, from extracting the raw material through manufacture, distribution and use to eventual disposal. Doing it properly often shows that the stage a designer worries about is not the stage doing the damage.