Belinda mentioned in one of her recent posts that the consumer tech industry is now at a stage the car industry inhabited many years ago. Many car manufacturers have indeed started to take women as consumers seriously. For a long time, most cars are implicitly or explicitly designed for men and by men.
At London Business School, I have conducted some research with Volvo. A group of women at Volvo thought it was about time to show the world what a car designed by women may look like. This produced the first concept car designed by an all women team to provide the world with a practical example of how women would design a car. The car was presented in 2004, but there are some valuable lessons to learn here.
The task was to design a car that would not be futuristic but realistic in terms of the needs of women as well as men. Their research has indicated that in the premium car segment women are the hardest group to please and building a car that meets their expectations also means to build a car that will please men.
The team conducted an external and internal study to explore what women want in cars. The central idea about the project was to ask questions in a different way.
Research found for instance that women like an easy to park car not because they cannot park but because they park a car much more often during a day.
The team also challenged the idea that cars are designed with men in mind fitting their bodily features much better than those of women.
The concept car was very innovative because the team re-thought fundamentals of car design such as where the hand breaks or the washer fluid were situated or how the doors should open.
In addition a new concept of headrests was introduced allowing people with ponytails to sit comfortably and the layout of the car was a 2 by 2 version with the rear two seats being moved in slightly to allow the driver to see the rear passengers.
The team wanted to create a car that felt more like a living room and decided to include having movable cushions and different fabrics for the upholstery of seats.
Although it was never intended to be built, the concept car provided a lot of thought provoking ideas which influenced the design of other cars. Tasking women’s perspectives into consideration challenged how things had always been done. The result was a concept car that was built by women for everyone.
Recent Comments