Team:Manchester/Human Practices
Integrated Human Practices
- Interviews with key stakeholders (dermatologists, sunscreen producers and potential consumers - define project values).
- Thematic analysis of YouTube - identify major trends in sunscreen use and perception.
- Survey analysis - challenge internal biases to understand why people support or oppose biotechnology.
- Survey analysis - public sunscreen habits.
- Reflection on criticisms implemented appropriate responses in our product design.
- Partnership work with St. Andrews team on analysis of survey data.
Our Human Practices involved a flow of conversation between us, the inventors, and our stakeholders. This year, we adapted to the limitations placed on us by the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the concerns and values of people affected by our project were reflected in our work. We conducted interviews over Zoom with dermatologists, sunscreen producers and potential consumers. We performed a thematic analysis of YouTube videos filmed by stakeholders across the world. This allowed us to see how people perceived and interacted with sunscreen across all ages and ethnicities, helping us to visualise the implementation of our project in the real world. In addition, we conducted survey analysis reviewing people’s sunscreen habits and challenged previous social scientific findings in a modern setting. Finally, when faced with criticisms we used our project as a platform for education about topical application of sunscreen and anthropogenic climate change. These conversations defined HippoSol’s values.
Our Project Values
Attention to Human Practices enables us to situate our project in social and environmental contexts to better understand the issues that influence our design and the future use of our technology. Our goal was to ensure our project is responsible, meaning it is conducted with care and foresight as well as being good for the world. Our team has used considered human practices to define our project values and gain an understanding of how our technology will impact the world.
- Our HippoSol product must be affordable across all income groups.
- Our HippoSol product must be suitable for individuals of any skin tone, including a wide range of shade options and leave no white cast.
- Project must be willing to expand its view beyond western ideals and remain considerate of diverse groups’ experiences.
- We will share information in a well structured and non conflicting way and attempt to educate visitors on identified areas of confusion.
- We will be open about our technology to help address concerns.
Interviews
We conducted interviews with different stakeholder groups over Zoom following social distancing protocols. The majority of these interviews were conducted in collaboration with our partner team St. Andrews, together, we identified stakeholders who would have an interest in our projects and used contact opportunities from both teams to reach out to them. In our interviews we prioritised listening to any concerns individuals had about our technology and discussing how people use sunscreen to better understand our future consumers. However, during our conversations we were able to discuss lots of topics including the research that led us to our project today.
YouTube Analysis
Limitations placed on us by the COVID-19 pandemic meant that contacting the relevant stakeholder groups was particularly difficult this year. To reach a larger diversity of stakeholders in these conditions, we adapted our approach and performed a thematic analysis of YouTube videos. YouTube is a free, open-source community where creators all over the world share their opinions and ideas while viewers can interact with each other in the comment section. The YouTube website is an effective marketing and information tool for numerous companies trying to settle their position in emerging and dynamic markets, and for entrepreneurs aiming to deliver their message to a broader audience. Furthermore, creators on YouTube are capable of influencing real world behaviours and therefore, analysing how sunscreen is presented and used on YouTube will help us understand how our HippoSol product will be used and perceived in real life. This method gave us access to stakeholder values across the globe and allowed us to identify major trends and potential criticisms of our project. Importantly, this analysis forced us to think about our project from alternative perspectives and expand our project view beyond Western ideals, including tackling issues faced by people of colour when using sunscreen. We noticed a generational shift in the perception of sunscreen from a health to a beauty product and made successful predictions on how this would modify consumer behaviour. In total we reviewed 34 videos including a qualitative approach and use of Nvivo software to create thematic codes for word frequency and code frequency analyses.
Synthetic Biology Survey
Early in our project we found a paper by Evensen et al. (2000) that used national survey data to test the effects of individuals’ objections to biotechnology applied to plants and animals. This study identified three world-views that could shape attitudes towards biotechnology: the purpose-rational, the nurturant and the creationist. In the 20 years since this paper was realised our world has undergone massive social and political change, including high-anxiety natural disasters like COVID-19. We wanted to see if world-views and religion had more or less of an impact on support for biotechnology in a politically-distressed climate of 2020. We used our survey to challenge public biases and found that moral support is not heavily influenced by these ideas. This allowed us to understand our consumers more and predict how they would respond to our project.
Sunscreen Use Survey
In this survey we analysed public sunscreen and sun bathing habits including where they use sunscreen and what SPF they use. We explored how personal experiences with skin cancer could influence sunscreen use and looked at changes in sunscreen use between generations. This survey allowed us to visualise and understand how consumers will interact with our project which guided discussions about implementation throughout our development phase. Ultimately, the results we gained provide us with a greater understanding of how our project will be used in the real world.
Reflection
When conducting our media analysis a particular comment by the account “Shea Drury” left on Lab Muffin Beauty Sciences’ video caught our eye. The account owner claimed to have spoken to an unnamed marine biologist, who believed that sunscreen particles were too small to contribute to coral bleaching in any significant way. She believed that excessive coral bleaching was caused by runoff from golf courses. Unable to find a publication supporting this particular claim it was tempting to just dismiss the criticism as false. However, this comment mirrored discussions we had with Louisa Liang (co-founder of people4ocean) and Dr. Hennige (coral reef researcher) who both said that the ultimate cause of coral bleaching is Climate Change. These ideas challenge our project because they highlight that our project alone will not stop bleaching events, whether sunscreens are damaging or not. Therefore, to ensure our project continues to have a positive effect we have created a Wiki page to educate people on climate change and redirect attention to the bigger issue. We have also drawn parallels between caring for your skin by using sunscreen and caring for the ocean to remind our consumers that the ocean is a precious resource. Furthermore, in our discussion with an expert dermatologist we talked about how topical application of sunscreen leaves gaps along the skin that reduce the effectiveness of sunscreen. In response to this conversation we have also created realistic advice that does not preach at consumers, to educate them on how to apply sunscreen effectively. These segments can be found on our reflections Wiki page.
Partnership
This year we have partnered with the St. Andrews team to conduct our Human Practices work. team St. Andrews are aiming to produce a probiotic sunscreen that produces the UV filter Shinorine directly on the skin. This would act as a living cream on the body protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The ultimate goal of both our projects is to reduce the oxidative stress corals experience to minimise bleaching events. The similarity between our projects resulted in our Human Practices values aligning, we wanted to utilise this and use each other as a contact point to extend our access to stakeholders. We conducted 3 stakeholder interviews with team St. Andrews, a dermatologist, a coral reef researcher and the co-founder of people4ocean, producers of reef-safe sunscreen. Our interviews have allowed our teams to define our respective projects values based on the opinions and concerns discussed. We also attended a meeting with IP lawyers to discuss issues our projects may face and how to ensure we can support each other without hindering our IP opportunities. We have used each other's social media platforms to increase our sample sizes for our surveys and spread awareness about each other’s projects. Through our own entrepreneurship work we were able to mentor the team St. Andrews team on the major trends with the sunscreen market and guide them through the techniques they would need to produce a business plan. Finally, we shared survey data between the teams to help evidence and strengthen our respective human practice and entrepreneurship work. Overall, our partnership with team St. Andrews has strengthened the reliability of and expanded the impact of our projects. The shared survey data helped us visualise the implementation of our project.
