Backcasting Customer Experience

We’ve spent so much time thinking through our own experience of running the shop and how the shop will function and be perceived in it’s one-year period. But what about the time-scale of the customer experience, this only just starts with them placing an order in the shop and a few days/weeks later leaving with their commission in hand. They will take these items with them out into the world, at best these items will last a life-time, will collect memories, can be passed down or altered to fit changing bodies. These items will likely need some repairs along the way. How can capture the life-times of the items?

If we imagine 30 years from now, when the items people have commissioned might be ready to make a move…. to be passed on because the items hold memories that would be nice to share with others… passed on to children or friends, passed on to strangers because
items worn out from wear but technology still works… technology is broken but item can still be worn as non-tech clothing… item out of fashion or does not fit anymore… when it is time to get rid of the item… but what to do with it? It contains a mix of textiles and electronics (cotton, nylon, copper and components…..), are there recycling options? Can it be disassembled? Could it be sold on Ebay?
Could the items become collectors items? Artworks? How can we keep track of where these items are so that in the case we want to organize a “group exhibition” in 30 years we could really do this.

What will the life of the items have been like?
Will they have been worn out from regular wear?
Were they only worn on special occasions and still look like new?
Are they intact but the technology is broken because a connection broke or one of the parts?
Is the technology still working but the item no longer fits? is no longer in fashion?

Throughout “the year of the shop” we will of course welcome customers back to have their items repaired if they break. But what will happen after the year, when there is no shop to come to? do we still offer some kind of service?
Maybe in the years to come, e-textile tailor shops will pop up and there will be actual places to go to for their repair.
Could there be a forum where customers can post their issues and broken reports and people from the E-Textile community could respond to these and offer themselves for repair service?
Could repair cafes be the place to go with broken e-textiles?
Customers could be encouraged to repair their items themselves.