A1:
Project Definition / Business Opportunity
Students
Kelly Bryant, Lilia Manguy, Helen Hye Kim
Project
iBuyRight - The Social Responsibility Barcode Project
Introduction
This project was inititiated by Professor Dara O'Rourke (Environmental Labor & Policy Dept. at UC Berkeley) and Dr. Alastair Iles to address the need for consumers to know where the products they're buying come from, how they were made and what impacts these practices have made on the environment and communities. The aim of this user needs and assessment project would be to learn more about our targeted users purchasing behaviors and preferences, and to find out what kinds of information would be useful in enabling them to make informed purchases. This project aims to empower consumers by giving them access to a richer set of information from which to base their buying decisions. This data will help consumers decide on the most appropriate purchases according to their needs and values.
Target market
The target market for the purposes of this study are UC Berkeley undergraduate students between the ages of 18-24. The rationale is that these students are a subset of the largest age group of consumers and they are likely to have access to the web and camera phones.
Stakeholders
The internal stakeholders include the research team of Professor Dara O'Rourke of Environmental and Labor Policy and Dr. Alastair Iles, a postdoctoral researcher working at the Energy and Resources Group and also at the Electronics Research Laboratory.
The external stakeholders include customers who will potentially use this information to inform their purchasing decisions. Other external stakeholders include members of the product supply chain such as manufacturing companies including their employees from management to factory workers and the stores that sell products. There are companies who stand to lose favor with consumers but there are also companies that may gain favor. Additionally, this information may effect people globally if it assists with changes in product production.
Focus
The focus of this usability study is to identify: the specific social issues that influence our target audience's purchasing decisions, the best medium for communicating this information to them, and the optimal user interface to help access this info quicky and easily.
Objectives
The objective of this usability study is to identify the target users' purchasing behaviors, preferences, and the kinds of information they need to make informed purchases, in order to develop an application that will facilitate and support the process of responsible consumerism.
Competitors
Products or services that are considered competitors should possess some of the following characteristics:
1. Provide information about the supply chain of products so that consumers can know how products are manufactured
2. Provide information about products' social and environmental impact
3. Provide information about features of products to enable consumers make informed purchasing decisions
4. Aggregate and provide corporate reports and/or news about corporate practices in areas of sustainability, corporate citizenship, Environmental, and Health & Safety
The following sites are competitors:
http://alonovo.com
http://www.responsibleshopper.org/
http://www.idealswork.com/
http://www.transnationale.org/
http://www.thegreenguide.com/
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/
http://www.corporatecritic.org/
Team
- Kelly Bryant, Lilia Manguy, Helen Hye Kim, Shufei Lei (2nd Year MIMS students)
- Professor Dara O'Rourke and Professor Alastair Iles in the Department of Environmental Science