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.
For those of you interested in my presentation from Toronto’s MESH 08 conference, here is the presentation via slideshare. Part of this presentation was inspired by my thoughts on the brand as a self.
The output from qualitative research is often overwhelming. Unlike quant research, qual findings are often messy and hard to decipher. Here are some techniques to manage the voluminous data of qualitative studies.
Start with clear research questions: in an earlier post I explained how to set up a design research project, step by step. One of the most important steps is to create a clear and answerable research question. This seems like an obvious point, but often it isn’t. Qualitative research often appears to be “just talking to people,” which gives us all the mistaken impression that it is entirely unstructured. It isn’t. Take the time to define research questions.
Summarize frequently: Let’s say you’ve chosen to do in-depth interviews. After each interview, take 20 minutes to write out a brief summary of what you remember being the most important points of the interview (note that this is not a substitute to taking notes during the interview). These notes are the first step toward analysis. You are reducing “clutter” and irrelevant information. You are also exploring connections with previous interviews.
Reduce, reduce, reduce: You will always have more data (e.g., videos, photos, transcriptions) than you can use. Be ruthless by reducing what’s important. Edit down your videos to only the clips that are most important (keep the raw data for another time). Reduce your transcriptions down to select quotes that speak to your research question (and again, save the entire transcription for another time). The goal is to have a workable set of artifacts.
Visualize the results: Many qualitative researchers make use of summary tables and diagrams to further summarize results. My favourite visualization method is the mental model, which can convey a huge amount of information in a synthetic way, quickly. Other tools include mind maps and even the simple bulleted list.
Hunt for connections: There is no science to this process. It is iterative and intuitive. But there are approaches you can use to find connections. I frequently use the “open sort” technique, with nothing more than a blank wall and post-it notes. Scribble themes onto post-it notes. Sort them into categories. Name the categories. Collapse as many categories as you can until you only have 4 or 5 “buckets” that explain your findings. If you’re researching children’s commutes to school, for example, you may have a category called “independence” which would talk about kids’ desires to be grown up, to have their own transportation method, and the knowledge to get to school. They are related only through the higher-order notion of “independence” and not the lower-order ideas of “transportation” or “age.”
Ask “So what?” often: When I was in journalism school, I had a professor who tirelessly quizzed us with his version of so what: “What does it mean to metro?” he would demand, meaning, why should the people of this city care? Why should your design team care about these results? What does it mean for their process? Why should the users of this product care about your results? How might it make their lives easier or more pleasant? And of course, why should bean counters of all sorts care? How much money will it actually save?
These general guidelines will help you in your journey to deciphering meaning. But no qualitative project can be save from poor research design. Make sure you’re using the right approach.
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?
In a previous post, I talked about what designers need to know about economic class. How did we learn that economic class can be “seen” in designs? How did we learn that “refined” taste is “upper” class?
In general, use qualitative research at the beginning of a design process to uncover innovations. Use quantitative research at the end of a design process to measure improvement.
It started with qualitative research, and became “refined” (no pun intended) with quantitative research. French sociology Pierre Bourdieu followed a typical arc to the narrative research by first investigating economic class in an open-ended fashion. Once he established what he thought was going on, he tested these ideas with large surveys.
If you know little about the topic, start with the qualitative. This means ethnographic observation and in-depth interviewing. Open ended questions are best. At this stage, you’re trying to find the lay of the land. If you’re designing a new car stereo for example, you may wish to start by watching people use their existing car stereos. Maybe drive around with them and ask them questions about what they like.
Once you’ve learned the basics of car stereo requirements, user needs and pain points, it’s time to test your assumptions. This is where the quantitative comes in. Close-ended questions are best here, including multiple choice, yes/no, or simply number of “successes.” Let’s say you’ve learned through your observations that people don’t like how their stereos require programming their radio stations. It’s too much bother, they told you. You think pre-programmed stations might be a good design improvement, so you create a new stereo with pre-programmed stations.
Did it work? Ask your stereo users how they like the new system after they have bought their new car. But the question is, compared to what? This is where quantitative research gets tricky. You can compare the new stereos on select models (58% of users of the new model are very satisfied, while only 32% of users of the old model are). Or you can compare before and after the improvement — the so-called “pre-and post test.” That requires time, foresight, and — you guessed it — budget.
Below is a diagram that summarizes the research “funnel” from exploration to validation.
Recently the blogosphere blew up over a post by Danah Boyd about classes on MySpace versus Facebook. Boyd contended that each site appealed to differing economic classes. Facebook has a “cleaner” look, some people argued, making it “higher class.” What does that even mean? Well designers, here’s what you need to know about class.
In his famous book Distinction, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argued that one’s “taste” was not just something one simply “has.” No, Bourdieu said, “taste” is a function of your economic class, and higher classes pursue “distinction.” He surveyed many thousands of French people and found that from fashion to food, people strove to distinguish themselves economically through their use of symbolic objects.
Bourdieu points out that merely expensive things are not “distinguished.” One can be adorned with many expensive items but not have one iota of distinction. Imagine the young woman who wears several designer objects at once. Or the middle-aged man who wears diamonds and gold because he thinks it’s “classy.” Such goods are indeed expensive but they do not connote higher class. Bourdieu noted that this paradox is related to the rich’s desire to maintain its preeminent social position. The “nouveau riches” will never have “what we have.”
Designers of all media tend to unconsciously understand this concept. Perhaps the designers of Facebook designed its clean Web 2.0 look to contrast with the “down market” or “ghetto” look of MySpace, with its garish colors and poor user experience.
When designing a new object, keep in mind the following:
Understand the class position of your target user. Imagine what clothes this person would buy and wear. Imagine their closet, their garage. What kinds of goods does this person use to adorn herself? Ensure your design object matches that type of good.
High-class objects embody such values as “refinement,” “subtlety,” and “understatement.” Clean objects with streamlined looks and no obvious connection to price are implicitly higher class. Those with refinement (but maybe not money) will be attracted to them.
Don’t design higher-class objects in the hopes of creating a “better” object. Higher class objects are off-putting to middle and lower class people. In the words of Bourdieu, lower-class people “refuse what they were refused.” Lower-class people do indeed have money to spend, and good design serves the needs of people. If you improperly privilege the “refined” over mass appeal, you will unwittingly reduce your number of potential users.
Exclusivity is the elixir of the elite. Designing luxury items necessarily entails limited editions, smaller product runs, fewer accessories or add-on products. The secret to creating truly successful luxury items is committing to the unique. This may not be very profitable (even if you do charge an “exclusivity premium”). But after an exclusive product is created, it can be “copied” for mass production. The “original” will never lose its distinction, especially if it has a clear imprimatur.
I often have people ask me how to go about a design research project. Here’s a handy step-by-step guide..
The Research Question: this isn’t the same as a research topic. Research questions are answerable in a finite amount of time and yield specific, actionable answers. Some good examples:
“What do senior citizens find frustrating about taking their prescribed drugs?”
“How do high school students typically study for their driver’s licenses?”
“What would working mothers find valuable in shopping for groceries?
Some bad examples:
“What’s an interesting new way to deliver online medical records?”
“How can we improve the driving experience?”
“What’s wrong with our marketing strategy?”
Determine the Method: This is likely the hardest part because every method presents a potential drawback. In general, if you don’t know much about the topic, use a qualitative method (and no, that does not mean “just do a focus group.”) If you know quite a bit about your topic but want to measure change, improvement or any other knowable quantity, choose quantitative research. That does mean “do a survey” sometimes — but not always.
Write and Test the “Questions”: I put that in quotes because sometimes it’s not exactly a set of questions. Maybe it’s a task flow and a set of observations the researcher must make. Sometimes it’s a semi-structured interview. Sometimes it’s a quant survey. Make sure you test these “questions,” even in a quick and dirty way with co-workers.
Recruit Respondents: Remember your research question? That should tell you whom you need to recruit. If you can’t figure it out, then you need to revise your research question. Be specific but not too narrow in your choices. The more requirements you impose, the smaller your potential base. If you’re doing a qualitative research project, keep interviewing until you start getting the same answers. This usually starts around 8 to 10 respondents. You’re not interested in “statistical significance” but the experiences of the people you’re talking to. For quant studies, statistical significance does apply and you should strive to have a minimum of 40 respondents. Remember though that the higher the number, the lower your margin of error.Design researchers can also rely on professional recruiters to get people for you. Good professional recruiters should get you the right people for a reasonable fee.
Prepare the “Stimulus”: If you’re testing a new office chair, make sure your prototype is ready. If you’re interested in something that doesn’t yet exist, consider using photographs to elicit ideas and reactions from respondents. If you’re testing a “concept” make sure that what you’re testing reflects what you really want to know. For example, a picture of a new office chair may not do you any good if what you really want to know is how comfortable the chair actually is.
Set Up The Research Space: This is an under-emphasized by oh-so-important aspect of research. Ethnographic research requires you to select the natural environment of your subjects, for example, and you must ensure you have been granted access to that space. If you’re interviewing, decide what kind of place might be conducive to good answers. Noisy restaurants or malls are unlikely to get you personal information, for example. This matters for quant research as well, as there’s a big difference between an in-person, a telephone, and an online survey.
Set Up the Interviews: For qualitative research, this takes a fair bit of back-and-forth. It’s helpful to enlist the help of a junior staff member or an administrator. Keep your records straight!
Determine the Data Collection Method: If you’re interviewing people in their homes, a TV camera may not be a good choice. Small digital recorders are available for iPods now (I love mine). Digital photos are also useful, but less discrete. And, if you can spare the staff, have one person dedicated to note taking. This frees up the interviewer to really engage with the participate, establish rapport, and probe for opportunistic findings. For quant research, this question usually involves technical questions like, how am I going to import these data into a data analysis tool?
Collect the Data: Do your interviews, watch your tasks, ask your questions, whatever. Remember to take notes throughout. These “field notes” are sometimes the most valuable you can have.
Answer Your Question: Remember your research question? This is where it comes in handy. You now know exactly what to do when you’re looking through your photos, or your notes, transcripts or whatever.
