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DoorDasher Experience+ : A Critical Design Take

UX Design & Research
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What could the gig economy look like in a gig worker led alternate universe?

For my graduate capstone, I worked on reimagining the current gig work ecosystem. The final design is in the form of a newsletter update, part of a critical design project, through which I explored the challenges and issues faced by gig economy workers like Dashers. 

The goal is to shine a light on these issues and prompt discussion about potential solutions. Currently, gig workers have to deal with multiple variables at once. The non-transparent, non-gig work friendly algorithms that the gig work platforms use, do not help them. Instead, they blatantly ignore the workers’ goals and conditions.
(Case study coming soon!)

Below is the final newsletter. Scroll to read on! (Find the PDF version of the update here)
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Let's Break It Down!

Artist's Statement

This project inspects the current state of gig work apps and proposes several updates to the existing platforms. All three entities that are involved in a food delivery ecosystem are given the shared responsibility to uphold their end of the agreement. Restaurants need to prep food on time to avoid wasting delivery driver’s time waiting to pick up food or restaurants will have to pay hefty fines. Customers need to provide proper instructions, help delivery driver in time when needed, tip more and be nice or risk losing access to basic features across all food delivery platforms. Offloading some of this would allow delivery personnel to focus on what matters the most – earning more money in less time.


The world we live in today is incredibly complex, and changing rapidly. As we move in time, it is important to think critically about how the decisions made today impact the futures. Through this project, I attempted to envision one version of that future and bring attention to how gig work apps are operating currently. 

Recent events such as the California Proposition 22, have sparked protests and drawn attention to the need for better protections for these workers. I am not stating that gig workers are perfect but I never would have imagined that the government would have to intervene in allowing access to restrooms for individuals picking food up from a restaurant.

But if you really think about it, it is complex and needs a mix of thoughtful and critical intervention. These examples show how many things there are to think about and work on to build better worker conditions. Future work in this space includes exploring ways to provide fair wages, benefits, and working conditions for gig workers, as well as addressing the power dynamics between gig platforms and their workers. 

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