Int J Interact Des Manuf DOI 10.1007/s12008-016-0326-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Development of usage models for the ecodesign of products: the concept of usage ecodrift Alexandre Popoff 1 · Dominique Millet 1 · Olivier Pialot 1 Received: 23 May 2016 / Accepted: 3 June 2016 © Springer-Verlag France 2016 Abstract Usage ecodrifts, which refer to non-optimal use of a product by the users, create additional environmen- tal impact generators: energy overconsumption (real-time impacts) and abnormal wear and tear of parts of the product (delayed impacts). The goal of this study is to demonstrate that these Usage EcoDrifts must be taken into account during the design stage to better the environmental performance of the use phase of the product. In this paper, we study the case of different usages of a vacuum cleaner and their environ- mental consequences. We first conducted a survey to gather information on how people use the product. Then, we con- ducted experimentations to measure the consequences of the usages. We also explored how the testers responded to feed- back inviting them to adopt a more sustainable behaviour. Results show that most of the users do not use the product optimally and cause additional environmental impact. Sev- eral usage ecodrifts were identified, causing both abnormal energy overconsumption and wear and tear of the product. The calculations show that delayed environmental impacts, because their consequence is the early replacement of the whole product, are of much greater importance than real- time environmental impacts. Keywords Usage EcoDrift · Use phase model · Ecodesign · Life cycle assessment · Users segmentation · Interactive design B Alexandre Popoff alexandre.popoff.ap@gmail.com 1 COSMER, Université de Toulon, 83957 La Garde, France 1 Introduction The use phase of products is the source of a great share of environmental impacts at a global scale [1]. As showed by Tang and Bhamra [2], people often find their own ways of using products and risk deteriorating their environmen- tal performance. These non-optimal usages generate both unnecessary electrical overconsumption [3, 4] and abnormal wear and tear of products [5]. In this study, we call product usage which deviates from the best available environmen- tal practices available “usage ecodrift” (UED). UEDs do not have yet a common shared definition among the scien- tific community. Given its importance on the environmental performance of products use phase, it appears necessary to clarify this concept. The UED concept has already been stud- ied in the scientific community under other names. Studies have mainly focused on eco-driving and household sustain- able practices regarding water and heating/cooling [6–10]. The goal of this study is to demonstrate that the UEDs can be modeled to be taken into account during the design stage of products. There, they can be dealt with to better the environmental performance of the use phase of the prod- uct. This underlines the fact that the ecodesign process has to be highly interactive with the users. Knowing the users and their practices is of crucial importance for the product to be environmentally efficient. Especially if the use phase has a high environmental impact, an interactive approach should be systematically employed when ecodesigning a product. To evaluate the pertinence of the UED concept, we used the case of the wireless vacuum cleaner. We studied its usage by observing a panel of users and conducted several envi- ronmental evaluations of the product itself and of different usage scenarios. 123