Ethicons
Type of work
Group project in The Glasgow School of Art
Duration
5 months, Jan to May 2022
Tools
Figma, Miro, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Premiere Pro
My Role
UX designer, User Researcher
Background
During the pandemic, the demand for delivery was increasing and predicted to keep growing. However, delivery workers' working conditions are incredibly stressful. Their work contracts do not guarantee sufficient salary or sick leave. They also have insecure employment structures and low wages. So they need to take as many jobs as possible and are under stress due to time pressure to deliver everything. The most significant pressure is the time pressure coming from the fast culture (24-hour delivery). This pressure is getting worse after the pandemic. In our project, we chose delivery riders as our care target. Caring for delivery workers can support the lives of many other key workers. There is enormous potential to care for them.
Why we choose delivery workers as our caring target
- In our project, we decided to choose delivery riders as our care target. This started with the realization of the growing number of Key Workers due to the pandemic.
- Most of them are supported through the social care system. However, Delivery riders are out of scope of current care system. This is because they are included in the new industry called “Gig-economy”.
- Caring for delivery workers can support the lives of many other key workers. There is huge potential to care for them.
Delivery worker's working situation
During the pandemic, the demand for delivery was increasing and predicted to keep growing. However, delivery workers’ working conditions are incredibly stressful. Their work contracts do not guarantee sufficient salary or sick leave. They also have insecure employment structures and low wages. So they need to take as many jobs as possible and are under stress due to time pressure to deliver everything. The most significant pressure is the time pressure coming from the fast culture (24-hour delivery). This pressure is getting worse after the pandemic. In our project, we chose delivery riders as our care target. Caring for delivery workers can support the lives of many other key workers. There is enormous potential to care for them.
Ethical consumption
We focused on ‘ethical companies’ that successfully share their invisible value with their customers.
For example, Patagonia, a clothing company with a mission to protect the environment. Many customers of Patagonia agree with their mission.
We came up with the concept of caring for delivery workers through the designing of a company which has values to protect delivery workers.
Interview for delivery workers and consumers
Based on these definitions, we interviewed delivery riders and users. Our realisations are both consumers and delivery riders do not know what they really want.
Furthermore, we identified the lack of opportunity for consumers to reflect on their behaviour due to ‘Fast Culture’, and consumers are not given the option to be ethical easily.
We tried to engage other stake holders as well, but this time we could not reach to them.
Key concept of our proposal
We hope to build bridges between consumers and delivery workers and give consumers the choice to be ethical.
It helps consumers to reflect on their consumption behaviour and become more ethical.
Our proposal will also help consumers to become ‘Active Citizens’ rather than Normal Consumers’ by giving them choices.
APP UI design
Website and visual presentation suite
Contribution of our proposal and future plan
Testing this prototype has shown that many consumers are likely to care for the planet and workers if given the option to ‘care’.
In other words, consumers who only focused on convenience could reflect on their behaviour and think about the delivery person before ordering.
Currently, most ethical products are a bit expensive. If we have more time to deepen our project, we would like to consider making these products more accessible to all consumers. In other words, we would like to pursue “care” for the delivery workers and the people and the environment involved in manufacturing products. To achieve this, we would like to increase the demand for ethical products. It will lead to reduced prices. Therefore, our company website promotes and advertises ethical products and shows the hidden dangers of unethical products.
