The workshop report details the findings from our co-design activity with 8 couriers in Manchester and York. It includes details on the riders everyday experiences such as their interactions with the cities, restaurants, and other road users. The report also details riders’ reflections on the future and how it could change in their favour. The report details a range of design ideas for apps, changes to the cities and tools for supporting riders. It finishes with initial drafts of provocative designs based on the riders experiences, developed by our designer Hayley Alter.
The booklet is a high quality printable booklet of provocative designs developed by the research team and designer. These designs are contextualised by the riders’ experiences and have iterated in light of feedback from our advisory board of Cooperatives UK, Miralis Data and Future City Logistics.
These provocations are artefacts that should be considered as exhibits, emphasising the voices of gig economy couriers in such a way that challenges the perception of them by the public and policy makers.
These probes were developed by the research team grounded in Callum Cant’s book “Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy”. The final designs of the booklet were created by Hayley Alter. The purpose of the pack was to elicit data that would shape the workshops that took place in Manchester and York. The probe pack was to include this printed booklet and a single-use camera that riders would use to take photos of important or interesting elements of their day-to-day work.
Unfortunately, due to the lengthly recruitment process we were unable to get the packs to participants in time to get the photos developed. The probes were used during the workshops to guide the discussion. A secure folder was shared with riders for uploading photos if they wished. We found that city maps (e.g. Ordnance Survey) were an incredibly fruitful probe at the workshop itself, where riders collaboratively annotated maps with their tacit knowledge and experiences.
Publications
The following academic publications have been produced as part of Switch-Gig.
- Kirman B, Bates O, Lord C, Alter H. Thinking Outside the Bag: Worker-led Speculation and the Future of Gig Economy Delivery Platforms. DRS 2022
- Bates O, Lord C, Alter H, Friday A, Kirman B. Lessons from one future of work: opportunities to flip the gig economy. IEEE Pervasive, Special Issue on The Future of Work: COVID-19 and Beyond, 2021.
- Bates O, Lord C, Alter H, Kirman B. Let’s start talking the walk: Capturing and reflecting on our limits when working with gig economy workers. LIMITS 2020
- Bates O, Remy C, Nash C, Kirman B. The future of techno-disruption in gig economy workforces: challenging the dialogue with fictional abstracts. InProceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019
- Bates O, Kirman B. Sustainable Platform Cooperativism: Towards social and environmental justice in the future of the gig-economy. Limits 2019.
Switch-Gig 