Have you ever taken a really memorable Uber trip? Maybe the driver shared interesting life stories, drove a cool car, or in my favorite experience, had an unlimited supply of every candy imaginable in repurposed hanging shoe organizers and called himself the 'Cuse Candyman.
Regardless of what specifically made your Uber ride so memorable, your driver was the *driving force* behind it. In 2019, inspired by the 'Cuse Candyman, I decided to independently pursue a research project about Uber drivers, to learn how drivers added personal touches to the rider experience. I sought to understand how drivers augmented the spaces within their ride-sharing vehicles, and what affordances of the Uber Driver platform led drivers to make these decisions.
A few short months later, the pandemic hit, and the use of transportation hit record lows worldwide. Online Driver communities quickly became hubs for exchanging information, support, and resources among drivers. Uber Drivers from all over the world were coming together online to help each other stay safe.
💡 Naturally, my focus shifted to understanding how Uber drivers augmented their environments during times of crisis.
Uber Driver User Research
My project took on three major parts: an exploratory phase to learn more about mixed realities, developing research questions and conducting field research via online driver communities, and lastly, putting it altogether by making connections and organizing my findings in a written report.
To strengthen my knowledge of mixed realities (XR), I turned to colleagues from across Syracuse University that knew much more about XR than me. With the help of my advisor and mentor, Dr. Murali Venkatesh, I organized a research focus group that met every other week for a few months to discuss VR, AR, and XR, and how they could be applied to different work environments. Through exploring Unreal software, tinkering with headsets, visiting cutting-edge VR labs, conducting literary reviews, and lots of nerding out about innovative VR technologies, my baseline was established.
With a solid understanding of how AR, VR, and XR apply to different work settings, including Uber ride shares, it was time to go deeper into developing my research questions and conducting field studies. I wanted to see in the wild how Uber drivers were interacting with the spaces within their cars, and how their passengers interacted in response.
I considered conducting interviews and developing surveys with Qualtrics, to speak with drivers directly about their personal experiences augmenting their surroundings. Ultimately, I decided on exploring online communities for Uber drivers - specifically, UberPeople.net and the r/uberdrivers subreddit community on Reddit.
Then, a global pandemic hit. Uber rides dropped drastically, almost overnight.
I decided to take my work in a new direction and study how drivers augmented their vehicles to protect themselves and their passengers from getting sick. I focused on proxemics: the study of how people orient their spaces to allow distance between themselves and others. Conversations online surrounding Uber driving became focused on proxemics and the augmentation of vehicles to allow for separation between the drivers and their passengers.
Online communities for Uber drivers became incredible resources filled with regulation updates, tips and tricks for installing better ventilation and plexiglass dividers, and offers for supplies and funds to those who needed it.
Drivers came together to help each other and share their stories. Some had the luxury of a second income and could stop driving temporarily; most had to find new ways to keep going, to provide for their families while keeping them safe.
It was so interesting to see how these forums served as safe spaces for Uber drivers, while also providing outsiders with an in-depth look at the complexities of being a gig worker during a time of crisis.
Uber drivers? There's a community for that.
Through my ethnographic study of observing the conversations held in the selected Uber driver communities, I was able to learn a lot about how drivers *really* felt to be working in their current conditions.
By observing from the outside instead of directly collecting information through surveys or interviews, I feel I was able to learn a lot about what drivers think about augmenting their spaces, and how they actively do it. I got to see the conversations drivers have with their colleagues regarding augmentation. I was able to learn about other factors, like air circulation through car heating systems, that I likely would not have considered on my own.
It changed my research questions by providing me with a more holistic view of the challenges drivers face, rather than what I would assume they face. Ethnography proved to be an extremely valuable user research method for me, and I plan on using it more in the future.
Ethnography: from the outside looking in....
1. Jack Kelly. 2020. Proposed Hazard Pay Law for Gig-Workers is Part of the New Battle Between Workers and Big Companies. Forbes.com.
2. Peter Gall Krogh, Marianne Graves Petersen, Kenton O'Hara, Jens Emil Gronbaek.
2017. Sensitizing Concepts for Socio-spatial Literacy in HCI.
3. Lev Manovich. 2006. The poetics of augmented space. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA.
4. Vikas Mehta. 2020. The new proxemics: COVID-19, social distancing, and sociable space. Journal of Urban Design.
5. Donald A. Schon. 1983. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books, New York, NY.
6. Thad Sitton. 1980. Inside School Spaces: Rethinking the Hidden Dimension. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA.
