Small Craft Businesses
for Sustainability

We are a group of MS HCI students hoping to provide more environmentally friendly business solutions for small business owners (SBO) in the craft industry. Craft industry can be defined as business models based on handmade goods, where craft business owners include local jewelry makers, boutique owners, clothing store owners, etc. Our research is centered on exploring how to reduce physical waste during the order fulfillment process.

Learn about us
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About Our Users

Who are the craft business owners?

  • 87% of handmade sellers are women with an average age of 39
  • 50% of the makers come from suburban areas
  • Most sellers worked alone and took on all responsibilities related to running the business

What do they want to do?

  • Offer fast and cheap shipping options to increase sales
  • Implement pro-environmental behaviors within their business
  • Minimize their usage of unsustainable packaging

Our Role

To figure out how we could best help them meet their goals while being sustainable, we first needed to understand the current problem space and context before we could identify ways to intervene or provide support.

Literature Review

We began by completing a literature review which revealed some common themes amongst craft business owners.

We learned that sellers wanted to:

  1. Create customer trust by aligning their sustainability values with their waste management operations
  2. Understand how to reduce the number of materials used in packaging while still protecting products
  3. Use a system without prior technical knowledge
  4. Avoid storing large quantities of packaging material at their home or workshop over a long time period

Task Analysis

Following the literature review, we completed a task analysis which helped us identify tasks that every craft business owner must complete.

Three key tasks:

  1. sourcing manufacturing and shipping supplies
  2. manufacturing and tracking inventory
  3. packaging and shipping e-commerce orders

What We Did

Our initial research pointed towards the order fulfillment process as the best area for intervention. We decided interviews would be the best method to learn about that process as it gave us a chance to interact with the sellers and give them an opportunity to elaborate on their processes. To confirm our findings with a larger sample, we utilized surveys.

See The Research
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Design Ideas

Our team used the research findings to guide our thought process and design ideas during the brainstorming session. At the two-hour brainstorming session, we followed a series of prompts to inspire ideas and initiate discussion. We set aside a few minutes for each prompt, where each member thought of their own ideas and externalized our ideas by sketching them out. Afterwards, we each shared our ideas by sorting them into different categories and combining aspects of our ideas that fulfilled the design requirements. You can learn more about our design process and view the first original ten designs we developed at the link below.

See The Process
InformedPacking

InformedPacking

An online knowledge database focused on sustainable packaging solutions. It will contain expert-level information on various packaging materials, ranging from life cycle to recyclability to manufacturing carbon emissions.

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WorkSHOP

A platform for craft business owners to communicate with each other via online or offline workshops. It is designed to help them learn how to make packaging from household materials, and increase their understanding of sustainable packaging and shipping.

See The Design
WorkSHOP