Newsflash from the Obvious File: The New York Times tells us that apparently, women like smart phones! This simplistic understanding of gendered experiences with technology is what makes poor technology. The journalist cites a marketer from AT&T, a supposed “expert” on gender-based design:
David Christopher, the marketing chief of AT&T’s wireless division, said women were less likely to be wowed by fancy gadgets. Instead, as smartphones have become sleeker, smaller and cheaper, they have become more appealing to them.
“Now they are small enough to be in your purse or pocket,” Mr. Christopher said. “Design does matter.”
Thank goodness Mr. Christopher is involved in product design! What might happen if my smart phone did not fit in my purse? Why, I may have to choose between lipstick and my smart phone! Quel horreur! This kind of simplistic approach to gender continues with a representative from RIM:
“We picked a shade of pink that fit in all kinds of settings — not too flashy,” said Mark Guibert, vice president for corporate marketing at RIM. “It was the only color that was purely driven by the female audience. Years ago the market was much more focused solely on function. Now there is more focus on lifestyle.”
Well at least Mr. Guibert is standing on guard for my right to have the right shade of pink. Does anyone else see what’s wrong with this picture? No? Allow me to enumerate the ways.
Gender-based features reinforce steretoypes: Product designers tend to reinforce systemic patterns when they create “women focused” features that speak only to the wife or mother role. Case in point is the notion that “juggling children’s schedules” is a women’s feature in smart phone design. It is more accurately known as a parent’s feature, but when it is only portrayed as one that suits mothers, we actually create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women’s features become parent’s features.
Gender-based design is about recognizing systemic patterns and alleviating the burden of them: Women may indeed be more responsible for “juggling children’s schedules.” But instead of foisting this “women’s feature” in smart phone design, instead make it possible to literally share “children’s schedules” among all smart phones. This would allow parents to better share the burden of child rearing, without painting it as a “women’s feature.”
Not all women like pink: This seems pretty obvious, but it’s not. Some women do like pink, that is true. I personally don’t like my technology to look “girly” (or really anything else for that matter), nor do many of my female friends. To create a “women’s colour” of smart phone is to imply that that every other colour is a “men’s colour.” I can’t have red if I’m a woman? Is that what your product is telling me? How off-putting.
Gender is fluid and constructed: Let us not forget what Simone de Beauvoir told us: “One is not born a woman but becomes one.” By this, she means that we are taught what it means to be feminine. Likewise, we are taught what it means to be a man, to be gay, to be Black, to be an immigrant. Product designers must remember that not all women will accept what they have been taught. Moreover, product designers must also recognize their role in constructing and reconstructing gender.
Product designers who take their cue from the tenor of the NY Times’ piece will design staid, gender-constricting products that alternatively confine women to status quo roles, or alienate women who openly reject them.
Below is a (very!) brief overview of online surveys. This slideshow, via slideshare, is intended for people in the Web design industry. IAs, designers, media planners, strategists, usability researchers, and producers will learn if they should, in fact, do a survey.
Dori Tunstall has written a fantastic post that details how a simple card sort can become a deeper exercise in analysis. Dr. Tunstall is a PhD anthropologist and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She explains how anthropology takes design research to a deeper level in card sorting, a common technique for information architecture:
“In addition to the information architecture, I delivered statements about the continued meaning of gender classifications. In the course of conducting the card sort, I learned that men and women continued to classify domestic products based on stereotypical gendered spaces of male equals outside/garage, and female equals inside.”
Dr. Tunstall clearly lays out some of the deeper implications of design anthropology later in the post. This is a must read for anyone looking to deepen their design or research practice.
Ethnographic research is mandatory for all design. Why? Because the role of design is to improve people’s lives. This you cannot do unless you know what people’s lives really are like — and not what charts and graphs and tables are like. Why do ethnography? Here are some clear reasons.
People don’t know what they actually want: Would anybody ask for a translucent mirror? That’s what they now get at Prada. The dressing room’s at Prada ’s flagship New York store allow you to do something you normally do — but better. Shoppers can first view outfits on themselves, then can invite their friend’s to view their outfit — but turning the mirror into a window. Instead of coming out of the dressing room, leaving your handbag behind, you can instead simply click a button with your foot, and show your new outfit to a friend.This innovation did not come from asking people what they want, but by thinking about the process of buying and trying on clothes.
Context matters: Most people who design mobile phones don’t think that electricity has anything to do with their product. But they are wrong. Researchers in Africa have learned that when the power goes out, people can’t charge their mobile phones. The solution? Various forms solar and wind-powered chargers.Designers must know where their product will be used. Deep insight into that context can only come from knowing the context.
People lie: A well known example of urban ethnography finds a contradiction. People say they want a quiet space to eat lunch, but when you watch lunchtime routines in urban spaces, people do anything but seek out quiet spaces. Now are they lying to be naughty? To be elusive? No, they lie because they believe the “normative” or “should do” practice of eating lunch is a quiet experience.Actual experience plays out much differently.
Designers design symbols — which can’t be understood through numbers: The reason why people love quantitative research so much is because it is short and easy to communicate. You know the “average” household income, instead of having to think of all the possible household incomes. You know how many people answered “yes” to a pre-defined question.Designers are designing or adapting symbols. They cannot do so without knowing what they represent. But you can’t summarize symbols. Symbols *are* summaries already — and not numerical summaries.A national flag conveys many ideas for people within that nation state (and many more for those outside it). Likewise, a kitchen stove is a symbol that conveys much about the household, gender relations, and family life. This cannot be conveyed in the “average” number of kitchen stoves.
Many designers will take numbers or focus group research or even usability test results and design their products. They may even improve people’s lives that way. But short observational research provides “thick description” that all designers need.
Brands introduce themselves to people much in the same way that people introduce themselves to people. And just like for humans, brands often “give off” more information than they explicitly mean to provide. This is especially true for Web sites: the brand online is the same as a “self,” and must manage its impression just as people do.
We have all experienced this: you meet someone and develop an immediate sense of what they’re about. You have figured out that this person works in, say, finance, and he has money and children and likes nautical sports. You also find him curt, arrogant and a bit full of himself. Is it something he said specifically? No, not specifically. He did snap at the waitress. And he did mention something about a regatta. He also casually tossed his credit card down when the bill came, rudely brushing aside protestations from the most senior person at the table.
One of my favourite theorists, Erving Goffman, tells us there is an impression you GIVE, and then there is the impression you GIVE OFF. “Selves,” as Goffman puts it, engage in impression management using subtle symbolic signals.
Designers often implicitly think of their particular product — whether it be a kitchen product or a print ad — as something that “gives off” an impression. But this is much more important for immersive experiences like Web sites. A company’s Web site in particular is an immersive experience that gives off countless symbolic cues.
Some observers call this phenomenon “cross channel synchronicity,” or simply just “user experience.” The Web site is key to “giving off” the right impression for a company and its brand because it is the living embodiment of that company.
How should graphic and interaction designers create their products? Keep in mind the following:
The brand is a “self” on the Web. This is a great opportunity but designers also run the risk of “giving off” the wrong impression immediately through interactions that suggest a stand-offish, arrogant, or selfish brand.
Brand-critical interactions must be done right: I have had many clients who appear unconcerned about appear small interaction problems of their Web site. But if these interactions revolve around mission-critical symbols of your business, make sure they’re done right. If your brand identity if “fun,” ensure that interactions are full of fun, not hard work. If your brand identity is “trustworthy,” over-communicate that message in interactions.
Provide the expected “props”:In an earlier post, I showed how individuals use symbolic cues, or “props” to manage impressions. Doctors use stethoscopes, for example, despite the fact that fewer than 40% of them know how to use them properly, mostly because patients EXPECT them to carry them. Web site designers should remember what users expect in terms of “props.” Does your brand really need AJAX? Are visitors surprised to find their is no flash element? Are visitors expecting form fields to have in-line editing?
We all seem to be running out of time. Time use is an important but often overlooked aspect of design. What do designers need to know about time and time use?
Types of Time
We don’t all use or experience time in the same way. Scholars call two types of time “monochroncity” and “polychronicity.” Polychronicity is defined as the extent to which individuals do more than one task at once. “Polychrons” tend to overlap tasks, dovetail their activities to “hit more than one bird with a stone” and are overall more comfortable with a variability in time sequencing. Monochrons, by contrast, prefer strict planning, a knowable a predictable sequence of events, and a general uniformity in the understanding of time.
These two types of time mean two types of design outcomes: one that is intended for the multi-tasking user and one that is for the single-tasking user. Designers should know ahead of time which type of time to incorporate in their work.
Temporal Impact On Creativity
Madjar and Oldham found that time orientation, time pressue and task rotation is related to creativity. People who were polychronic and rotated through creative tasks (creating marketing plans) tended to be produce more creative results. Monochronic people tended to produce more creative results when they proceeded sequentially through tasks. Both groups had less creative results when they perceived intense time pressure.
Tips for Designing For Time Use
Temporal Disruption for Users: Recognize you are disrupting users’ temporal process, which is often taken-for-granted and invisible. This disruption can be significant in that is will increase stress, anxiety and may elicit negative responses. This is especially important for designers of technology. Research has shown there is a large and often unintended impact through poorly designed technology.
Agency/Client Temporal Disconnect: For those of you in agencies working with clients, recognize your own working process may differ from your clients’. This may result in miscommunications about expectations of temporal consistency. Your clients may be monochrons and expect you to be the same.
In-house Temporal Disconnect: Managers tend to have more control over their work flow. They also tend to order themselves monochronically. But those further down the totem pole tend to have little control and are often polycrhonic as a result (often unwillingly). Managing a good design practice is ensuring that every worker has some autonomy in their temporal practice. Let monochrons be monochrons.
Your Own Creativity: Are you monochronic or polychronic? Your team likely has a mixture of both. Find out which one you are and try to engineer situations that match your orientation.
