Date

2021-10-18

Author

Dilek, İrem

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Over the past decade the world of work has been experiencing digital transformation. Integrating the digital processes and tools into business models, digital transformation has led to the shift in the traditional business structures, hierarchies, relations, and the workplace. Thanks to this shift in the traditional way of work, today, it is possible to outsource the work through an open call to a geographically dispersed mass of people. This means that, companies or individuals now have access to an indefinitely large group of people, and are able to solve their specific problems with them in exchange for payment by using online platforms on the web. This new model of work is referred to as crowdwork. This research focuses on a professional group, industrial designers, who have increasingly preferred to work on online crowdwork platforms as a digital work form in recent years. Despite the increased importance of crowdwork and online platforms and the rapid incorporation of industrial designers into this work model, little is known about the topic. This thesis examines this gap by exploring where and how designers find meaning in crowdwork. The fieldwork of the thesis conducted in the context of Turkey consists of interviews with 22 Turkish industrial designers. The analysis of the interviews discusses meaningful work for designers on online crowdwork platforms with respect to the three needs suggested by self-determination theory, which are (1) autonomy, (2) competence, and (3) relatedness. The thesis offers two main conclusions based on the findings obtained from the interviews. First, doing design projects on crowdwork platforms meets the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness at different levels. While platforms fulfill designers' needs for autonomy and competence and provide designers with positive experiences, the situation changes and gets complicated when relationships are involved. Second, from the perspective of industrial designers, designing on crowdwork platforms imitates working as an in-house designer in an organization. The experiences of designers regarding their relationships with other actors in in-house work are reproduced here, in design crowdwork.

Subject Keywords

Industrial design, Crowdwork, Online platforms, meaningful work, Qualitative research

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/94949

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis