Amazon Z to A: Speculative Design to Understand the Future of Labor-Intensive Workplaces

Eun Jeong Cheon, Vera Khovanskaya

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding warehouse work is critical to “future of work” scholarship as warehouses are vital indicators for anticipating how work could be structured, controlled, and experienced in other data-driven workplaces in the future. However, researchers often face challenges in studying and designing interventions in such work environments, particularly ones where non-disclosure agreements and intensive, isolated, and precarious work conditions pose practical barriers to research access. By creating a set of speculative designs about warehouse work futures, we explore how speculative design techniques can be used to analyze and critically engage with on-going ethnographic research into warehouse work at Amazon fulfllment centers. These designs serve not only as a means for unpacking the logics of contemporary warehouse work but also as an approach to identify directions for worker-centered research and design in the future. This paper also provides sensibilities for using speculative design techniques to study hostile and labor-intensive work environments.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2024
EditorsAnna Vallgarda, Li Jonsson, Jonas Fritsch, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Christopher A. Le Dantec
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages314-327
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9798400705830
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2024
Event2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2024 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Duration: Jul 1 2024Jul 5 2024

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2024

Conference

Conference2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2024
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityCopenhagen
Period7/1/247/5/24

Keywords

  • Design Workbook
  • Speculative Design
  • Warehouse
  • Worker-centered Design

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

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