The Telegraph featured an article on 30 May 2008 entitled ‘Feminised gadgets: An eye for the ladylike’. The article claims that women become more and more interested in gadgets. Figures seem to support this. Sony Ericsson claims that women spend more money on gadgets than on shoes (£391 per year or £17 billion in total). Based on the article two-thirds of the Nintendo DS users are female.
The article assumes that feminised technology is something new in the West yet well established in Japan. DoCoMo asked women what they want in mobile phones and subsequently produced a hugely popular, small clamshell handset with an integrated camera. At that time few people understood the value of cameras in mobile phones but that has changed of course dramatically.
Women do seem to hold the key for many design innovations in the gadget market simply because they are often not asked what they want from technology. The article also quotes Ladygeek research saying that women do not want pink products but useful, easy to use products. They want phones that are also fashion accessories and beautifully designed.
The classic example is Jonathan Ive’s iMac design which showed that computers did not have to be beige or grey boring boxes but can be design features. My first generation iBook does indeed look stunning in my room and is regularly admired by visitors.
What appeals to women often does appeal to men too. The article claims that indeed ‘gender barriers are becoming blurred’ suggesting that men and women both want beautifully designed, easy to use technology. Rather than becoming feminised it appears that technology is finally being made fit for humans rather than just a certain group of technology savvy and nerdy men.
more food for thought, great stuff!
it is interesting to finally see women’s wants being taken into consideration. i agree that technology needs to be designed to meet human needs, we shouldn’t have to pander to it
i take issue with the finding that women want phones to be fashion accessories. i’m very interested in style but that doesn’t take the form of buying the latest stuff…surely that’s just pandering to wasteful consumer culture and lining someone else’s pockets? i don’t see it as progress that women move on from buying endless shoes to buying endless gadgets.
if manufacturers have finally realised that they can make even more dosh by “feminising” gadgets, we women need to use our brains and cultivate our positive, feminine characteristics in ways other than shopping