5 ms·
Reading this article, I'm reminded of the movement to "design for the other 90%." It is ironic, and also a little sad, that our high tech society thinks that al
by Others 11y ago
Reading this article, I'm reminded of the movement to "design for the other 90%." It is ironic, and also a little sad, that our high tech society thinks that all the developing world needs is more technology. I guess it is easier, and more enjoyable, to design and build things that seem useful, rather than go out and try and change people's behavior. (Not that I think that the movement itself is bad, just that any project in that domain needs to consider how much its product will really be used/adopted.)
- paulojreis 11y ago> I guess it is easier, and more enjoyable, to design and build things that seem useful, I agree with this. We (IT people) are so self-centred that it hurts. :) We do "everything" - we "entertain" ourselves with new approaches, frameworks, management ideas - except actually "talking" to and "knowing" our users, their life ands true needs. It's particularly sad, at least for me, to see UX also being "shaped" like this. We can get essay-like posts on building an icon family, yet it's hard to find good content regarding how company X got to know their users and build what they really wanted.
- minthd 11y ago>> yet it's hard to find good content regarding how company X got to know their users and build what they really wanted. Isn't all the work by steve-blank and the lean-startup deals with it?
- msutherl 11y agoMost large corporations including Google, Apple, Intel, etc. have an entire department of designers and social scientists (mainly anthropologists) who do ethnographic studies, user studies, etc. in order to understand their customers, new markets, etc. It's really only the startup world that puts less emphasis on user research, but that's in large part because it's resource intensive to do so and many companies have shown that they were able to succeed without it. As startups grow larger and the market more saturated, they must shift from "scratch your own itch" to "user-centered" in order to grow and stay competitive. Alas, because the startup scene is overwhelmingly centered in the Bay Area and is dominated by white upper-middle-class American men, white-upper-middle-class American male itches get scratched first.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoDo you have an example of a white-upper-middle-class American male itch?
- xur17 11y agoFood / grocery delivery startups seem to be intended for upper middle class people only.
- msutherl 11y agoI just Googled "biggest startups". First result: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-startups-that-launched-so-far-in-2015-2015-5?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/best-startups-that-launched-s.... Mostly good examples with a couple of exceptions.
- zasz 11y agoOh god. Manpacks and The Dollar Shave Club are so hetero-white-male it hurts.
- muratk 11y agoI wonder if there is a grey area where tech solutions can help push slow ideas by easing if not the “talking” then the spreading of ideas. Let's say a FB group for nurses in Uttar Pradesh, where they can share their thoughts and ideas. You'd use the foot-approach to educate a part of the group. They can then gather experience, validate their learning and spread that. The idea would be that tech makes the idea spread faster, with you having to educate less people by foot. The impact might be improved by working geographically, so that each nurse talking to the nurses she knows would be unlikely to talk to one already educated. But then, maybe overlapping groups would reinforce the learning. :p Also, reminds me of an idea of an NGO had to record testimonies by voice calls, and then playing these testimonies to their peers. Still not the same as building a relationship, but probably goes in the same direction.