One of the featured companies in Glimmer is Smart Design, the design studio responsible for OXO Good Grips products and many others. An article by Kate Rockwood in the October ’09 issue of Fast Company magazine focuses on a particularly interesting group within Smart Design, formed to explore and explain the women’s market to clients. It’s called the Femme Den and it has four women designers at its core… Erica Eden, Agnete Enga, Yvonne Lin, and Whitney Hopkins. The women still work on various different product teams at SmartDesign, but also get together to write white papers about gender differences, deliver in-house presentations, and generally spread the word about some undeniable stats: American women, who make up more than 50% of the population, buy or influence the purchase of 80% of consumer and business goods and services, not to mention 65% of new car purchases.
I was particularly struck by the fact that women make or influence 81% of consumer electronics purchases. Yet, the gadget advertising and store displays I experience (Best Buy comes to mind) are obviously not aimed at women. (The big exception being Apple, of course. Their Genius Bar is genius for all genders.)
The Femme Den talks about how, due to actual brain differences, men are driven by specs and features info while women are looking for benefits and how things fit into their lives. Interested in ease of use, a woman will grab a camera and turn it around to check out how its buttons function while her boyfriend is scrutinizing the white specs card.
If you’re a company trying to appeal to that 81% of influential gadget buyers, seems like you might try to make the benefits and user experience a little easier to figure out. (By the way, Smart Design worked with Pure Digital Technologies on the design of the wildly successful Flip camcorder, and by making ease of use a top priority they sold 1.5 million videocams in the first year and a half. Fun sidelight: the Flip now offers easy ways to create
a totally personalized skin for the camera, with either your own design or designs by 18 different designers, including IDEO.)
The Femme Den has gathered lots of info about the differences between women and men. Some of it is so obvious it’s laughable. For instance, did you know that most women are shorter than men? (Apparently seat belt designers don’t know this). Also, we have breasts. (Many backpack makers seem unaware of that.) As the Fast Company article says, the Den want to get out the word that merely “shrinking and pinking” doesn’t cut it for female consumers. And they expect their progressive design ideas to permeate everything from lawn mowers and desk lamps to cell phones and survival gear.
Actually the Den hopes that product designs will balance the needs of both men and women, leading to more appealing unisex objects like the iPod and the Flip. For now, though, it’s mostly clients looking to reach women that are interested in tapping into the design research and ideas of the Femme Den. But there’s no doubt that the days of companies being in denial about this powerful mass market and treating it like merely another niche are numbered. Luckily there’s some Smart women out there to lead the way.
Want more on this topic?
- A Sept. 2009 book by Michael J. Silverstein called Women Want More: How to Capture Your Share of the World’s Largest Fastest-Growing Market offers an exhaustive analysis of the 2008 Boston Consultive Group Global Inquiry into Women and Consumerism, which surveyed 12,000 women from all walks of life about their spending habits. Lots of anecdotes and examples. Best brands that understand what women want in a product experience? Nike, Coach, Crème de la Mer, Adidas, and, of course, Apple.
- NY Times trend story about how cell phone designers are going after female users. (Yes, there’s still some shrinking and pinking going on.)
- Another perspective from the NY Times on gadget design for women. (Factoid: apparently Sony noticed that women have long fingernails, and designed its notebook keyboard accordingly.)
No related posts, but check around GlimmerSite for lots of other interesting articles.
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And follow the Femme Den blog currently running on FastCompany.com–it’s fun reading, and full of good info if you’re running a business.