Analysis and UX Improvement of Design Unfairness in Platform Labor Service according to Power Asymmetry among Stakeholders

Abstract

Background Although the online platform labor market is expanding, the issue of poor working conditions that platform workers have to face such as employment instability and asymmetric power relations with key stakeholders (workers, consumers, and platform providers) of platform services, have been constantly raised. For this reason, research from various fields dealing with unfair systems, policies, and improvement of platform labor conditions have been conducted. However, there is a lack of design research effort on improving the design unfairness of online platforms where service key stakeholders meet and interact. Focusing on a platform for household and babysitting, this study identifies design unfairness that occurs in interactions with platform workers, consumers, and platform companies and proposes UX (User eXperience) improvements to the mobile app for the key stakeholders of service to strengthen their power balance. Methods This study analyzed the design unfairness focusing on household and babysitting platforms. Pain points experienced by major stakeholders of services on the platform, were collected through surveys and interviews, and ‘design unfair elements’ were derived using open coding. In addition, UX expert reviews were conducted for further analysis. Afterward, based on the analysis results for each service and expert review, UI prototypes were proposed to improve design unfairness, and their effect was evaluated by service stakeholders. Results Three major elements of design unfairness were derived: (1) information asymmetry between service stakeholders; (2) the absence of measures to deal with risks of platform users; and (3) an unfair rating system. This study found ten prototypes to suggest design guidelines for UX improvements. Some examples are permitting users to determine the disclosure scope of his/her personal information providing mutual checking service history of users, and providing a right-to-be-forgotten on rating. Conclusions This study is meaningful in that it suggests a way for the design field to contribute to the recent social issue of 'improving poor platform labor condition and treatment.' In addition, this study has the following significances. First, this study raises the issue of 'unfair design' of domestic services by considering the perspectives of major stakeholders in neglected platform services beyond 'customer (consumer)-centered design', which was the mainstream of the existing service industry. Second, this study identifies elements of design unfairness focusing on household and babysitting service, which has relatively few research cases, a higher female engagement rate, and special characteristics in interactions such as trust, quality and service continuity between consumers and workers. Third, this study presents UX improvements in the form of UI prototypes, which can function as design guidelines in the future to reduce design unfairness.