Designing for diversity is not just for “Him” or “Her”

Design has always been iconic in advertising — think Morton salt girl, Nike’s swoosh, Geico’s gecko. The Digital era has extended it to Google, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix. However, design is more than just the logo. When it comes to digital products, you have to consider online interaction’s power to engage consumers irrespective of their gender or ethnicity.

Mckinsey has shown that design’s business value is two to one where better-designed product companies outperformed their counterparts.

The missing point is that D&I initiatives are not just to increase numbers to be inclusive. Proven Research indicates that online purchase decisions and the website design are intricately linked to gender, ethnicity and other cultural aspects.

Stories of women getting rejected for a credit card or an Asian man’s passport photo rejected due to his “eyes being closed” have not thought about design diversity.

Why diversity matters? According to Microsoft’s design toolkit “Designing for inclusivity not only opens up our products and experiences to more people with a wider range of abilities. It also reflects how people really are. All humans are growing, changing, and adapting to the world around them every day. We want our designs to reflect that diversity”

Here are some principles to keep in mind when designing for diversity :

1. Design for gender

In her excellent research article “ Some Men Like It Black, Some Women Like It Pink: Consumer Implications of Differences In Male and Female Website Design, “ Gloria Moss suggests that effective design of web-pages should include the preferences of the target market. Here is an excerpt from her research

Today we also have trans and other non-binary genders that are on the rise. Thinking of how your product can support the various genders and their preferences should be top of mind during the design process.Tiffany embraces this principle with the following message:

2. Design for cultural context :

Companies are missing out on new business models by not capitalizing on cultural context. The United States has the advantage of a culturally rich environment. According to the United States Census Bureau, the US population is 40% non-white, which introduces an opportunity to design for various cultures. Including advertisements and festival sales during cultural events such as Cinco De Mayo, quinceañera, Diwali, etc. is a window to increase sales and attract new customers to your brand. Nike captures this beautifully in this ad for the Chinese New Year!

3. Design for disability :

15% of the world’s population has some form of disability. Considering designing products for people with disabilities does not mean just checking the box of Section 504-Compliance. It means making products accessible to the diverse needs of people with disabilities. Introducing new voice-driven technologies, as shown by Google DIVA is just one example.

While designing mobile apps, including transcriptions and captions and text to speech conversions, would provide immersive experiences to people with various accessibility challenges. Check out the Google Look out App that leverages AI and computer vision to help the visually impaired.

4. Design for age groups/archetypes :

Knowing your customer persona is the first step for any Go-To-Market product strategy. Addressing the needs of a wide variety of potential customers like millennials, Gen-X, Gen-Z, and baby boomers would be challenging to the best of design teams. Focusing on target customers for each of your product portfolios would help with messaging and feature design. Having potential customer conversations is necessary to find the customer archetype for your products. What are the emotions, wants, and needs of people across generations is an excellent place to start. Funny story about a survey conducted to understand millennials’ take on Potatoes!

The process of designing includes exploring customer personas beyond established stereotypes and exploring inclusive user research. Have you thought about potential users with disabilities? Do you foresee certain archetypes that are an intersection of age and demographics? What are new business gains from connecting with various cultural experiences? In the end, organizations need to factor in inclusive design for business benefits and create an inclusive society.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.