Check out this advertisement for a new Product Design group at a State University:
This poster is a great illustration of why I am increasingly turned-off by the culture of engineering. I don’t care about mountain biking. Call it my female “nurturing” instinct, my “softness” in preferring yoga to mountain biking for adrenaline rushes, or even my “altruistic preferences” in wanting to spend my time on something that would help everyone’s lives, not just recreational mountain bikers – but I’m just not interested. Instead, I want to design things that average people actually use every day: toothbrushes, computers, desks and chairs, a birth control dispenser that doesn’t suck, etc. Engineers design all of these as well; yet the designers of the poster chose this unimaginative example.
I don’t attribute it to malice – just ignorance. The guys who made this poster likely searched their brains for a few microseconds before choosing to go with the mountain bike image because they thought it was cool. It is in exactly these kind of recruitment scenarios, however, that those in power need to consciously think about the images they are choosing to represent their field if they care about attracting more diversity in engineering.
Out of curiosity, I pulled up the stats on your average mountain biker:
- 86% male
- 50% have household incomes of $75,000+ (US dollars)
- –> Own 2.2 mountain bikes on average – note the mountain bike pictured is ~$4000!
- (i could find no stats on race/ethnicity of mountain bikers, but…)
Let’s compare those to the stats on your average engineer:
Wow, these two populations have similar demographics. And I know a lot of engineers who mountain bike. Doesn’t this make advertising engineering with mountain biking kind of like waving a big sign that says “hey (white) upper-middle class men with disposable income who mountain bike! Want to hang out with other dudes like you and learn how to make stuff that we like! Become a product designer!” Ugh, what a turn-off.
And its really a shame – we need more diverse product designers to create more diverse products! Just consider – all of the things in your house, all of the things sitting on store shelves, were designed by teams of engineers that are 88% male and 90% caucasian or asian. If I am a hispanic female, the probability that during the course of the day I get to use a product that was designed by someone like me is almost 0%. If I am a white or asian male, the situation is completely reversed – everything I touch was made by someone like me.
More women and minority product designers will only improve product quality and better address a broader spectrum of consumer needs. Increasingly the market is recognizing women for their influential purchasing power – some say 97% of buying decisions are now influenced by women. So why don’t we actually try to get more women into engineering and product design with recruitment campaigns that are actually relevant to their lives? Why don’t we use examples that people can relate to, regardless of socio-economic class? Why don’t we do better?
I propose a few alternatives for the poster creators:
1) Grocery Cart
If you live in a city you’ve probably seen lots of new-style grocery carts that change your shopping experience. Everyone eats and buys food, isn’t the possibility of affecting grocery shopper’s lives through good design equally interesting to designing a cool mountain bike?
2) Bike Helmet
How do you make a bike helmet cool yet still functional in protecting the head? This is a challenging design problem that is broader-reaching than the fancy mountain bike and may appeal to both mountain bike enthusiasts and those more “nurturing” types who are more interested in protecting human life. Plus, companies like Bern and Yakkay are creating cool new helmets that make traditional designs look outdated.
3) Remote Controls
TV is pervasive, as are DVD players, cable boxes, etc. and we’ve all suffered from a badly-designed remote control where you can’t find the buttons or the functions are unclear. Do you want to re-design this?
Anyway – the point is that there are SO MANY things around us, all the time, that have been “designed” by engineers and could serve as great examples of “design projects” for aspiring design engineers. By thinking of some of these wider-reaching examples, maybe a wider demographic of people could start to become interested in engineering.
[http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/mountain_hardtail/9_series/elite98/]
[http://www.imba.com/resources/science/travel_patterns.html]
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/employ.cfm]
