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IS YOUR PRODUCT GENDER NEUTRAL? Gayna Williams @ifshecanican Research Paper: Is Your Product Gender Neutral ifshecanican.com/zdb-reports.html gayna@ifshecanican 

A QUICK HISTORY LESSON 

A brief history… Centralized mainframe computer systems 

A brief history… The personal computer at work and then at home 

A brief history… Mobile, Wearable, Social Computing, IoT 

The future… Tech is everywhere 

Who makes the products? male female 80% male? 

Who makes the products? male female 90% male? 

Can the team develop for the customer base? 

My fear of the future…. 

SOME DIFFERENCES 

Our bodies are different Men Women 2.5%tile 50%tile 97.5%tile 2.5%tile 50%tile 97.5%tile Hand length 6.8 7.5 8.2 6.2 6.9 7.5 Hand breadth 3.2 3.5 3.8 2.6 2.9 3.1 Thumb length 2.4 2.7 3.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 

Women Shop Men Buy Cunningham, & Roberts (2006) Inside her pretty little head. Lifestyles are different 

Lifestyles are different Females do twice as much housework as males, have less leisure time, and sleep less Leisure Time Study compared behavior of female scientists & male scientists - http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/JF/feat/schie.htm 

Inflation? Longevity? Health? Will I be bored? Women worry about different things when anticipating retirement Lifestyles are different http://agelab.mit.edu/2007 

Technology use is different Adoption paths are different “More than half the bloggers in the US are women. They persevere longer and write more” “Twitter behaviors are different. Women actually say things, guys give references to other things” http://www.forbes.com/sites/gyro/2012/08/20/women-are-from-pinterest-men-are-from-google/ Women using Pinterest 72-97% of user base Google+ 71% male user base 

Buying power & influence is different “2/3 of consumer wealth in America will belong to women within the next decade” “$7 trillion is contributed by women in the US in consumer & business spending.” http://www.smartdesignworldwide.com/pdf/SmartDesign_DesignandGender.pdf Women buy or influence 80% of consumer and business goods or services 

OPINION & DEVELOPMENT How does personal opinion influence decision making? 

Deciding what to build Initial Tradeoffs Customer Business Technology Date Resources Quality Continuous Tradeoffs 

Does personal opinion influence decision making? Yes! Men & Women confessed Personal opinion influences decision making Note: Research disciplines claimed to only work from data and not use opinion in decision making 

Does personal opinion influence decision making? 3 motivations • Personal Gain “I want this feature in the product” • Enthusiasm & bragging rights “This will make us the best product out there, people need to know about it, because we can…” • Opportunity to learn “I will be able to try out new practices if we add this” 

Does gender influence opinion? Yes! Women do not like to share feminine opinions 

Does gender influence opinion? 3 reasons “I do not want to raise any opinion that will identify me as a woman in the room” “I do not want to suggest an idea that will be voted down, so why put it out there in the first place” “I have forgotten to think like a woman at work” 

THE ENGINEERING PROCESS 

Building a product Concept Early Development Development Release & Adoption 

Concept Phase Concept Early Development Development Release & Adoption Brain Storming Ideas Voting on ideas Market research assessment Pitching idea to executive approval Pitching ideas for VC/investors Prototypes 

Categories Home Movies Holiday gifts Gas &parking Bars & good times Business food Games 

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Early Development Phase Concept Early Development Release & Adoption Development Explicit business-focused principles - Scorecards, bug counts, feature sets Implicit principles - Personal experience, priorities, opinions - Loud voices and forceful personalities 

Release & Adoption Concept Early Development Development Release & Adoption Pre-release or Beta testing Exit criteria / quality gates Adoption path Advertising 

TAKING ACTION For your teams & for you 

Costs Nothing 1. Always use ‘She’ as the default pronoun 2. Execs should ask for female customers to be represented in prototypes and demos 3. Require all customer data to show gender percentages 4. Don’t allow men to misrepresent female family members in discussions 

Small Effort 5. Only do research with women, if the team believes there are no gender differences in user group 6. Male execs/investors should have trusted female reviewer for balanced insights 7. Have a women-only brainstorming team or at least 60% women for generating product features/tasks 8. When using a voting system – provide gender proportional votes 

Bigger Effort 9. Women only early adopter panels to balance feedback from pre-releases Foot note Customer/User focused Design! Give a voice to less empowered disciplines to bring value to the process 

THANK YOU Gayna Williams [email protected] Research Paper: Is Your Product Gender Neutral ifshecanican.com/zdb-reports.html Questions?