Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Figures (p. vii)
• Acknowledgements (p. ix)
• 1 The Design of Everyday Life (p. 1)
• Thinking About Things (p. 3)
• Gaps, Cracks and Questions (p. 10)
• The Stuff of Social Practice (p. 12)
• The Structure of the Book (p. 15)
• 2 Having and Doing: The Case of the 'Restless Kitchen' (p. 21)
• Explaining Kitchen Renewal (p. 23)
• Modes of Restlessness (p. 26)
• Missing Materials (p. 26)
• Having and Doing in Balance (p. 29)
• Unrealized Practices (p. 31)
• The Dynamics of Having and Doing (p. 34)
• 3 Consumption and Competence: DIY Projects (p. 41)
• Introducing DIY (p. 45)
• Accounting for DIY (p. 46)
• Doing DIY (p. 49)
• Consuming Hardware (p. 50)
• Distributed Competence (p. 54)
• Emerging Projects (p. 60)
• Product, Project and Practice (p. 64)
• 4 Reproducing Digital Photography (p. 69)
• Introducing Photographic Practice (p. 71)
• Going Digital (p. 76)
• Doing Digital Photography (p. 79)
• Taking Digital Pictures (p. 80)
• Manipulating Digital Pictures (p. 82)
• Organizing, Sharing and Viewing Digital Images (p. 83)
• Innovations in Photographic Practice (p. 86)
• 5 The Materials of Material Culture: Plastic (p. 93)
• Material Narratives (p. 95)
• The Promise Requirement Cycles of Material Culture (p. 99)
• Properties and Performances (p. 101)
• Material-object Relations (p. 104)
• The Chromatic Revolution (p. 107)
• Design and Image (p. 109)
• The Mass of Production and Consumption (p. 112)
• The Social Life of Materials (p. 114)
• 6 Theories and Practices of Product Design (p. 117)
• Positioning Design (p. 120)
• Product-centred Design (p. 125)
• User-centred Design (p. 129)
• Practice-oriented Design (p. 134)
• Redesigning Design? (p. 135)
• 7 Products, Processes and Practices (p. 139)
• Connecting Conclusions (p. 141)
• Implications and Directions (p. 148)
• Notes (p. 153)
• Bibliography (p. 157)
• Index (p. 171)