well the opposite sex.. this is not necessarily related to thesis directly but i thought id rant about it, because this BusinessWeek article on Dell suddenly realizing that women buy electronics too is maddening. This is more than obvious and slightly frustrating that in 2005, after more than 20 years of computational history, they would snap out of it and do more than “ooo lets make the ipod cover pink!”… Brings me back to a blog post on 37 signals which debated the very silli question of whether software was developped for men and not women. I mean this is a little bit of a double edged sword in a way because if that’s what companies are suggesting, that women are different types of users, then how? and when are they going to cater to them, and how on earth are we different users? I think they should spend more time thinking about making things easier generally and more specifically for people with disabilities who have more direct issues with technology then the color of the interface…
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Can’t agree more! But there are some positive examples: Hewlett Packard commissioned extensivly user research about image taking, storage and exchange. They realized that woman have a larger share in the exchange and the organization of photographs, nevertheless the hardware was focused on selling to man. In changing this quatation and offering easier to use, less feature laden cameras and innovative functions like downloading images staright to a printer HP was able to drastically expand their marketshare in the last few years.
Keep your ethos alive and utilize it in your thesis. Best,
It’s interesting that the majority of comments near the top of the 47Signals link (I didn’t read all the way through) focus on issues of structure and display within software. But I don’t think that’s the problem. It’s not an issue of smiley faces in an instant message session. Rather, it’s about user behavior. I daresay women tend to be more social and value face-time with others. Thus, inexperience with digital equipment probably stems less from any inherent inability to *use* the equipment than from an *unfamiliarity* with the equipment. Just because I can’t draw doesn’t mean I’m incompetent; maybe I haven’t practiced enough.