Most children's toys still have a lot of life left when they are outgrown. Reuse at scale is still uncommon, mostly because families do not have a service that feels easy and trustworthy enough to use repeatedly. The brief pushed us toward designing a loop where repair occurs, and we chose toys because the lifecycle and disposal patterns felt both clear and under-addressed.

We started with parent interviews to understand what would make families adopt a rental service, not just like it in theory. From there, we used system mapping and feasibility work to pressure-test what we heard.

The barriers were practical and consistent: hygiene concerns, trust in condition and safety, convenience of switching and returns, emotional attachment and buyout pressure, and cost compared to purchasing outright.

We also studied similar services to understand what patterns already exist and where services tend to break down in practice.

We mapped the loop as a system, which made the tension obvious: frequent switching increases perceived value, yet it also increases logistics cost and operational complexity. Cadence and return handling sit at the centre of feasibility.

We treated feasibility as part of the design process. We used system schemes and cost reasoning across different configurations such as physical, online, and hybrid to understand where costs concentrate and what conditions need to be true for the loop to work.
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This work led to a few scope decisions:

- We avoided building the core supply path of the concept on donations, since inconsistent quality makes trust and operations harder to stabilise.

- We excluded stuffed animals, since hygiene demands and attachment-driven buyouts work against circularity and increase replacement pressure.

Lekcirkeln became a hybrid store + webshop concept designed around ease and trust. For families, the offer is simple: rent durable, high-quality toys for a defined period, return them through a clear process, and switch without hassle.

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Behind the scenes, the loop is what makes it circular:‍

- Quality check on return

- Washing and hygiene handling as a standard step‍

- Repair integrated into operations‍

- Redistribution back into the system‍

- End-of-life handling with recycling where possible

To communicate the concept clearly, we translated the service logic into system schemes and built a brand identity plus a proof-of-concept website prototype. The prototype was not just marketing pages. It showed both the operational reality and the user-facing flow, including "how it works", product browsing, product-level information, and membership functions showing current rentals, history, queueing, and favourites.

The project ended with clearer requirements, not just a concept. Interviews clarified adoption needs. System mapping and feasibility work clarified where the service is sensitive, especially around switching cadence and return logistics.

Rather than claiming the concept is automatically viable, we framed it as a concept with identified viability requirements and explicit trade-offs: what must be true for it to scale and where the service is most sensitive.

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Lekcirkeln showed that realistic adoption depends on taking behavioural friction seriously and treating trust cues as part of the loop. If the loop breaks, the concept stops being circular, even if the intention is good.