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The 5 whys,
Interview Protocol, Interviews
Data synthesis, Insight generation.
Concept Relay,
User Flows
User Evaluation Protocol, Interviews
Patagonia wanted a solution to help consumers be more conscious about brands that support factory workers’ well-being and environment and make their support count against non-ethical brands.Online shopping platforms usually don’t takes into account the ethical aspect of factory workers’ rights to fair compensation and living wages and most consumers are unaware of it.
1. Workers’ rights abuses
2. Animal exploitation
3. Heavy carbon emissions
4. Unethical cotton sourcing
5. Polluting materials.
--ethicalconsumer.org
Even though, all the 5 are very important topics that I could focus to solve on, as part of this Design Challenge, I needed to focus on 'Workers' rights abuses'.
Having decided the first domain of my design frame, to explore further into the space, I had 3 questions,
I was surprised how as a consumer myself I never thought about this aspect of shopping online, so to find the answer the first two questions, I started reading existing articles available and youtube videos and scholarly journals.
For the answer to 3rd question, talked to general shoppers, to learn about their shopping experience, I had to defamiliarize myself and ask them questions about their thought and decision making process when they shop online.
I found out that even though brands have rules and regulations for factory worker's rights, they are usually not followed through when there is pressure from the thirds party suppliers.
California Transparency in Supply Chains Act by Zara
According to an article published by Business Report in 2021, some brands removed statements protesting forced labour when confronted by China, These brands were exploiting human rights in exchange of reduced cost of manufacture. So, how can we make the stakeholders liable?
Business Report 2021
In 2017, Turkish factory workers' condition was so desperate, that they begun sewing pleas for help inside clothing items to make consumers aware of the labour violations.
Business Report 2021
There are plentiful rules, laws and regulations passed by Governement and various NGOs but are not enough to make the stakeholders liable.
From what I learnt, consumers might not be very aware of this situation, so I conducted interview to understand the consumer side of the story. I came up with an interview protocol with 2 primary research questions that served as the North Star.
Participants : 6
Age range: 23- 29
Medium : Zoom
Documentation : Interviews were recorded and transcribed, note taking when necessary.
Topic DomainsT1: General online shopping questions
T2: User’s familiarity with consciousness and ethics in shopping.
T3: User’s relationship with ethics in shopping.
I identified 4 underlying themes that I wanted to ideate on.
1. Awareness of Action
2. Making brands accountable.
3. Visibility of factory workers' cause.
4. Unifying user's power.
After transcribing the interviews, I started synthesizing the data. I categorized the answers and insights by affinity mapping.
Educate users about suitability and factors that makes brands ethical. Make users more aware about the supply chain policies of brands.
focusing on positive impact of users and using it as a motivation for users to opt for ethical and sustainable options.
Unifing user's contribution to make their impact powerful.
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While I was doing the research, I came up with a few concepts that might be inculcated in the application, some of which were integrated into the final application as follows.
Bullet points on the clothes in making helps to attach emotion and gives clothes a depth.
A brief note on the worker who made the clothes -a way to give recognition to the hard work that these factory workers put in, something that they don't get enough of; this also makes consumers aware of their lives.
Option to donate a small amount of money that goes directly into the worker’s pocket.
We also give the consumers the option to donate to certain campaigns run by the brands for the factory workers' causes.
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These votes give consumers certain amount of power to make brands liable. The brand recommendations based on metrics and user votes each week ensures that the brands are more conscious about their impact on the environment and the treatment of their workers.
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Option for non-monetary support through signing petitions that help third-party fair trade regulating organizations gain enough momentum to act against brands and supply chain practices that are not beneficial for factory workers.
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A profile for the users which gives a summary of their conscious journey through metrics like donation, positive environmental impact through their decision to buy ethical clothing, and also how their voting helped GoodBuy create top ethical brand lists.
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To know more about the measures these factories are taking for the well-being of their workers. This is to increase transparency.
This is an opportunity for the consumers to become more involved with the worker communities helping them through donation.
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We also keep a track of brands that stand for the workers and their causes and make users aware of them.
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Participants : 5
Age range: 23- 29
Medium : Zoom
Documentation : Interviews were recorded and transcribed, note taking when necessary.
Since this was a two week design challenge, we did not have enough time to iterate through the feedbacks. However, I wanted to iterate it to make visuals more consistent and brainstorm on making the options more streamlined.
A dedicated platform to help recruiters find the perfect match for their needs and vacancy through skills and help companies remove unconscious bias in hiring.
Redesigning the website of Chinatown San Francisco by solving the major and minor User Interface issues of the present website.
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Good Buy facilitates conscious buying by helping users identify ethical brands that make a difference through their transparent fair trade factories and inside stories.
Make a Phish is a platform to create phishing email awareness amongst employees and teams by helping create fun and engaging phishing email competitions.
