Yuko Tsurumaru / Design Products

home industry: new tools for manual pieceworkers

Project supported by Design Council / Geoffrey Reid Associates

Research and development of a collection of low-cost objects for manual homeworkers, designed in collaboration with the National Group on Homeworking.

(click to enlarge)

Pieceworkers who work by hand with industrial processes in the home are among the most socially vunerable and economically exploited groups of workers in the UK. A high proportion are female and from ethnic minorities. Their work is often repetitive, dirty and hazardous; they lack adequate space and facilities; and they canot afford to purchase suitable equipment to support their work. This design project involved observation of six homeworking households in South Wales, Gosport and West Yorkshire in order to develop a range of low-tech products that that could either be purchased at low cost by the homeworker or supplied free of charge by the employer.

Study of homeworkers led to a series of design proposals. Three in particular have been realised: a kitchen workstool in solid beech designed for perching at the kitchen sink to stick and assemble textile samples; a group of table-top organisers in vacuum-formed plastic to assist in small-scale electronic component assembly; and, third, a series of stiff paper bags in bright colours to hold and transport rubber trimmings while blending with a domestic interior. Prototypes were tested with users and amendments incorporated as part of an iterative development process.

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