FC Experts Blogs
March 11, 2007
So, Design is Biased By Class. Now What?
The South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) brings together many of the best and brightest minds in the technology, design, and communications/entertainment world for four days of panels and parties. The crowd here seems to be largely on the same page – they are comfortable with the (very rapid) pace of innovation in this space, desperately anxious for new insights on what the next big thing will be, and confident (at least on the outside) of their own abilities. Almost by definition, we are an elite group of thinkers and doers for this space.
The goal of the event, now in its 14th year, is to tap the collective brain trust of this elite audience and channel their knowledge to keep the interactive industry all on the bleeding edge. The secondary goal, of course, is to find better ways to engage the audience who will ultimately use the technologies and content we create. What does the bleeding edge look like to us? In the first four panels that I attended on Saturday (the first full day of events) the bleeding edge included things like advergaming, widgets, and the future of movie and television production and distribution via the web. From my perspective, none of those discussions pushed much beyond the basics and certainly didn’t challenge me to think very far (if at all) outside my current experiences and understanding. I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t live and breath this stuff every day that would have found it all very interesting.
Then the last panel of the day convened.
I don’t know what the capacity crowd was expecting when they gathered for the “High Class and Low Class Web Design” panel. The four design experts were supposed to discuss whether high-end products like Apple and the New York Times design up to their elite customers while Wal-Mart, Fox News, and World Wrestling Entertainment target their working-class customers very differently (read: design down). The underlying question was whether there is a class system in the design world.
The panel didn’t do much with the topic. The meandering discussion touched on everything from user-process testing and audience panels to accessibility. There were some definitions of class offered and some bland answers to questions provided. What was striking, however, was how defensive the panelists became at the thought that their design work, or their approach to that work, could have a class bias. The crowd also reacted, with uncomfortable laughter and shifting in their seats when ads for Apple.com were compared to foot fungus medication ads. In the end, I think we all got a figurative kick in the head.
Why was everyone so uncomfortable? I have two thoughts. My first thought is that it is true -- there is a difference in how design is applied to different products or issues based on the educational or economic status of the target audience – and that is sort of painful to acknowledge. There is nothing inherently wrong with this practice of targeting ads based on what the audience knows. After all, the purpose of advertising is to sell products, build brand or sway people’s perspectives about an issue. The more closely aligned the ads are with the experiences of the audience being targeted the more likely they are to resonate and be effective. But if we are deliberately dumbing down our ads or design because we think that is what the audience is capable of (when they are capable of more) then we are unfairly stereotyping. My second thought is that the assembled crowd at SXSWi, and those who we represent in the interactive design and communications space in particular do not acknowledge widely and publicly enough that this is what we do. As such, we feel guilty when we are called out for it.
With that in mind, I want to issue a challenge for the interactive industry – and the designers in the group in particular. I think most marketers underestimate their audience. I think we too often believe that our education, creativity, and experience separate us from the people that we are trying to reach – that we are more sophisticated or know better than they do. It is grossly unfair to generalize, I know, but I see it all the time and I am guilty of it at times myself. So, I challenge the marketers, and designers, and others who are gathered at SXSWi to change our thinking – as individuals and as an industry. We should evolve. We should do better. Next year at SXSWi we should not debate whether there is class bias in design (we should accept that there is) but rather identify where the opportunities are for improving design across the board. We should get hands on, work with both our audiences and the designers, to understand how a rising tide can lift all boats.
Good design is absolutely subjective, but as long as we as an audience of elite thinkers in the interactive space snicker and look down on the design used to engage audiences who are not in a position to attend SXSWi, we are only contributing to the problem. A powerful innovation in our space would be to help the practice of design, and web experience, to truly challenge our audiences differently. I believe that we can use design to inspire and help all audiences learn and experience new things, instead of playing down to a lowest common denominator. Over the next year, and particularly at SXSWi 2008, I think we should prove that.
Director of New Media - Cone Inc. • Boston, MA • breich@coneinc.com • www.coneinc.com
Posted by Brian Reich at March 11, 2007 1:43 PM | Topic: innovation |
6 Comments
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I call BS. Of course there is classism in design, it's always about the target demographic. And it's not about the cultural elite underestimating other classes (let's say "blue collar"). Spend some time outside of Silicon Valley, in Middle America or the South, and you quickly learn that many people don't *want* elite design, they don't want things that seem too arty or polished or urban or impractical, they don't want things that are much outside of their everyday lives. This gradually changes, of course, but by definition, it is nowhere near the pace of the early adoption crowd, and we shouldn't expect it to be.
And perhaps even more importantly, we shouldn't condescend to think that design which caters to the "elite" is "better" than design which caters to blue collar. Design is good when it elicits the intended effect in the intended audience, period.
Design for your audience. The Apple audience and the Wal-Mart audience are different, so the design is different. This is absolutely natural and correct. It is arrogant and insulting to suggest that one audience needs to be "raised" to match the other.
Please, oh, please, do not "dumb down" anything. Design, promotion, advertising, interaction -- they are not about a dichotomy of smart/dumb, knowledge/ignorance, early adopter/late adopter, or any other duality. When you place people (or ideas or communications) on a continuum that is necessarily two-dimensional, you do everyone a disservice.
Always remember that the term "elite" is relative. People attending SXSWi may be elite in some respects, but when you attenuate to a different context or arena of experience, the definition of elite shifts. Sometimes the definition of elite becomes unrecognizable to those who consider themselves elite in their own circles. I've known a few people who were elite in their areas of endeavor. None of them had any resemblance to the stereotype of "elite."
Differences among groups of people must be taken as just that: differences. It is more about meaning and context than about elite vs. common or smart vs. dumb. What has meaning and relevance to the majority of Walmart shoppers is different from what has meaning and relevance to early adopters of new technologies.
If you want to communicate with (inform, sell to, listen to, dialog with) any particular group of people, remember to consider what has meaning to that group. Communicate accordingly. Make it easy for the lower third to follow along, but make it possible for the upper third to get what they want out of the interaction. In a Web site, for example, get the defaults so "dead simple" that they work for anyone, but also make the "what you can do with this site" competent enough for your power users. (Not an easy concept to execute well.)
Kudos to SXSWi for addressing the issue of differences! It is a critically important topic. Technology absolutely must bring along as many people as possible as it evolves. One way to do that is to recognize differences in meaning, context and purpose among different groups of potential audience members (and the buying public, since much of it is about commerce). Keep working at it and the whole world gets improved.
Chris - thanks for your comment. You did a better job than I did articulating the challenge that we face in having this discussion. I tried to present the point without displaying the same bias that I was suggesting the design community was. But I don't think I did that effectively. I did not mean to suggest that one audience needs to be raised up by some higher standard of design. But at the same time, I don't think it is appropriate to simply accept that the way we design and present information to people is working, or working as well as it could right now. Moreover I don't think its appropriate for those of us at SXSW (particularly me, a new media strategist from Boston) to make broad judgments on whether we are being effective and service the broad audience well. How do we ask people from around the country who are being presented with certain types or forms of design if they want different options, or yes, to be challenged? How do we bring that discussion into the next SXSWi so that we can continue to evolve our thought?
Dan - thanks for your comment. How do we keep talking about this issue so that we continue to make some progress, appropriately push new thinking and change into our work coming out something like SXSWi? There was a clear discomfort among many in the audience the other day at the panel, and the panel itself seemed to have difficulty in getting to the heart of the matter. Next year, do we need to bring designers who specialize in different types of audiences in to all participate? Is WWE not the best balance to the NYTimes when talking about design? I don't know, what do you think?
Ah, so if I understand correctly (after a much-needed night of mid-SXSW sleep), the question becomes "How do we judge the effectiveness of design among groups outside of our own personal experience?" In other words, we know (or think we know) how to design for ourselves and our cultural peers--but are we adequately serving the non-designers in the rest of the world? Are they left to their own devices due to our inattention and/or ignorance and thus not being properly served by the market?
Interesting question and I apologize for misinterpreting the original post. Sounds like what we're looking for is not only how to measure design effectiveness independently of designers' subjective and likely biased opinions, but also how to pitch the idea of more professional design to markets that may think they don't need it but actually could be better served by it. (Solving the first need will help identify opportunities for the second.)
Perhaps one way to keep the dialog going about design and differences in audiences is to reframe the question.
If the question is expressed with dichotomous thinking (us/them, haves/have nots, elite/common) there are barriers built into the question that make it unanswerable. No wonder there was a feeling of not getting anywhere.
New rules for the discussion: Anyone who thinks in terms of "dumbing down" must leave the room. Anyone who thinks in terms of "class bias" must be immediately deprogrammed with a remedial course in "considering the audience" (but somewhere else).
We all have to "get over ourselves."
Here's one way to reframe the question: "How do we get beyond media stereotypes, our own biases and egos, and the old, tired ways of doing things -- to understand our customers, along with their wants and needs and expectations?" (It's a more specific way of asking, "Who?")
There are real, living, breathing people on the other side of my Web application, and they have their own purposes. My purpose is to help them get what they want.
Bring to SXSWi next year, people who are really good at understanding people. Better yet, bring people who can help your panel audience understand not only the "Who" of the equation but also the "How" and, especially the "Why."
If you bring designers who specialize in different types of audiences, you'll have good examples of what has worked in specific cases. But if you bring the people who can go beyond mere examples, you'll share with your audience something they may be able to take home and use.
I'll leave you with an example of inadequate use of technology. Go to the Walmart Web site and do a search on lawnmower (assuming you might want to cut the grass). 18 results and not one cuts grass. Now do a search on lawnmowers (plural). 12 results and 8 of them will mow your lawn. Why should Walmart's online shoppers have to make that kind of distinction to find what they want. And Walmart misses sales opportunities by not showing me lawnmower-related products like 2-cycle oil, gas containers, blade-sharpeners, lawn fertilizer, and a hammock to relax in when I'm done working.
Somewhere, there's a designer who could be better serving Walmart. More importantly, Walmart and their Web designer could much better serve their online customers (further increasing profits, of course).