How to Navigate Tricky Conversations About Designing for Women
In the first two parts of this series, we reviewed the science behind women’s design preferences as well as a detailed approach to designing better digital products for women. Here, in the third and final part of this series, we’ll see how to practically apply our learnings to real-world conversations.
The last step in designing for women is convincing your stakeholders, whether they be clients or creative directors, CEOs or product managers, that designing for women is not about leveraging aesthetics that are typically thought of as “feminine.” Instead, designing products that successfully appeal to female audiences is achieved through a combination of establishing diverse design teams, developing thoughtful personas, leading with value-based communication, testing female audiences, and “signaling” using imagery that aligns with your intended user.
For more details on a thoughtful approach to designing for women, make sure to read “5 Steps to Designing Better Digital Products for Women.”
With all this in mind, here’s a conversation guide to help you navigate discussions about designing products that appeal to women.
What to do when your stakeholder says: “We want a product that appeals to women.”
The first step in designing better products for women is making sure you have women on your design team. So the next time you hear this question from a stakeholder, you should be able to confidently say: “That’s great! All of our project teams are balanced with men and women, but we’ll make sure we have a female creative lead on this project.” Having women on your design team will help you avoid blind spots that women will easily detect. Importantly, having women leading creative teams will help ensure that these blind spots do not get overlooked or deprioritized.
But beyond just having women on your team, you’ll need to make sure you have detailed personas that do not solely rely on gender — but instead take user behavior, motivation, interest and aptitude into account. Ask your stakeholder: “What kind of woman are you designing for? Can you tell us more about their daily habits, what features they’ll likely care about most, and other products that this audience would use?” Having this information will help you design a product that avoids stereotypes (because your personas will be complicated and force you away from tired tropes) and it will also help you avoid “spokesperson decision making” (i.e. relying on your female co-workers for their individual opinions and preferences).
We also know from research that women need to understand real-world benefits of a product before they commit the time and energy to learning how to use it. So it’s crucial that you explain the benefits of your product (not features). Ask your stakeholder: “How do you see your female users integrating this product into their daily life? How would the features make their lives easier or better?” Being armed with this knowledge will not only allow you to better market your product, but it will also help you with your in-product messaging — guiding female users through your product with benefits-oriented communication.
We also know that when we don’t test female audiences, we can be doing them a serious disservice. Tell your stakeholder: “If we’re designing for women, we need to test them to validate our decisions. Let’s include user testing as a primary activity for this project.” While testing should always be a key part of product design, because of budget, time or interest, design teams often skip this critical step. Without testing, the risk of your product missing the mark with women will inevitably go up. So don’t take the risk.
Finally, people respond favorably when they can sense a product has been built “for them.” How do we create that feeling? By leveraging imagery that reflects our intended audience. Tell your stakeholder: “We’ve found that people respond favorably when they can see themselves using the product. We should make sure that our custom photography includes images of our target demographic.” No matter what form of imagery you use (i.e. photos, illustrations, iconography), conveying that a product has been built for a female audience (while avoiding stereotypes) is a reliable tactic to increase your chances of attracting female users.
What to say when your stakeholder says: “I’m a woman, and I don’t like this.”
When your stakeholder falls back onto “spokesperson decision making” it’s important to draw from evidence. Can you point to user testing? The opinions of other female designers on your team? The detailed personas you’ve diligently developed? If you haven’t completed these other critical steps, it’s going to be very difficult to convince your stakeholder they’re wrong. But if you’ve done your homework and followed the steps to design better products for women, you can confidently say: “We know from our designers, our personas and the user testing that we’ve done that this design does broadly appeal to women, even if it’s not your personal preference.”
What to say when your stakeholder says “It doesn’t look feminine enough. Make it pink.”
In this scenario, your stakeholder has fallen into a stereotype trap. They’re relying on bad information and it’s your job to set the record straight if you want to design a product that appeals to women. Rather than relying on a design element like color, try to get to the root of your stakeholder’s concern and leverage tactics like signaling to make a strong connection between your product design and your intended audience. Try something like: “Are you concerned that women won’t understand that they are our target audience? If so, let’s try to adjust our imagery to make it clearer.”
Designing products for women is not someone else’s responsibility
It’s easy to shrug the responsibility of designing intentionally for female audiences — we don’t know enough, our bosses want a design done a certain way, or we’re unconsciously making decisions based on stereotypes. But in reality, if you’re touching a product that is meant to appeal to women — as a designer, product manager, developer, marketer, producer, etc. — it is absolutely your responsibility to make sure you know, and are intelligently designing for, female audiences.
Once armed with the right information, you’ll be able to navigate difficult conversations about what it means to design with a specific audience in mind. And you’ll launch better products.
