Alright alright — what’s with car companies and these periodic releases of cars that emphasize “woman-friendly” features?

The 2010 Chevy Equinox is one of these – as a brief article in Time explains, the Equinox has features that were designed with women in mind but are relatively subtle – many consumers may not even notice. The notable “woman-friendly” features include:

1. a different tilt to the accelerator pedal that makes driving in high heels safer and more comfortable
2. carved-out door panels, to help keep rings from getting whacked when window switches are used
3. center console spacious enough to stow a handbag

I think the change to the accelerator pedal tilt makes tons of sense and would genuinely help the transmit the force from the leg to the pedal without placing too much pressure on the fulcrum of the heel or ankle.

However, as reporter Alyssa Fetini points out in this video, they didn’t bother to change the brake pedal to match! I think its a legal/safety requirement that the brake pedal be closer to the driver than the accelerator, so perhaps there’s less flexibility in tilt angle for the brake pedal. But doesn’t it seem like the designers just went halfway in integrating this female-friendly feature?

As for the other Chevy improvements — I don’t wear rings and have no idea what they mean by a carved-out door panel. But its funny how all the press materials are careful to specify that the doors are carved out to keep diamond rings from rubbing. As we’re in the US and American cars have the steering wheel/driver’s seat on the left, it’s the left hand and the diamond ring on the left hand that is the concern being addressed by this “feature.” Sounds like a marketing spin as they realize their target customers are the soccer moms/yoga moms with the fatty rocks on their left ring fingers…

And finally – a big center console?! Awesome, sign me up! But I think everyone would find that useful for storage, not just women for their handbags. You could easily spin that feature for men as well – “lots of room to stow your man tools, readily accessible from the comfort of your driving seat.”

But the bigger question is — if you make a big deal about the three new special design features included in your product for women, what does it say about the rest of your products? That they were designed with only men in mind? And really, thinking about women and what they would want in a vehicle led to only these three features? Seems lame to me.

For a blast from the past, I’ll remind you of Volvo’s “Your Concept Car” (YCC) introduced in 2004. It made headlines for not only the “woman-friendly features” (they had at least 8, beating the 2010 Chevy Equinox by a longshot) but because it was designed by a team composed of predominately women. Never intended to be a true production model, the YCC was meant to be a symbol of Volvo’s forward thinking and efforts to include women from soup to nuts throughout the design process. Here’s a short list of their “woman-friendly” features:

1. Spacious Center Console to store everything – note they moved the gearshift and parking brake to maximize the center space.
2. Gull-Wing Doors (like the Delorian in Back to the Future) to make it easy to get in and out, also improves visibility over driver’s left shoulder
3. Exchangable and customizable interior colors/fabrics to “match every outfit”…
4. Sealed front hood – capless ball-valve filling points for windshield washer fluid and gas are the only 2 orifices the customers are intended to interact with and service
5. Car Care button that keeps track and automatically notifies service centers when car services are needed (i guess this was a big deal in 2004)
6. Easy Clean Paint Finish so the car stays “clean”
7. Parking Assistance – computer helps steer and check to make sure you have space while parallel parking (this was a big deal in 2004 but has become increasingly common since)
8. Ponytail Space – the headrests have a split in the middle to accomodate drivers with ponytails
9. Adjustable Heel Support for Accelerator pedal – wonder if they patented it as Chevy’s design is quite different.

Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, as the Chevy Equinox actually is mass produced, marketed, and solid to the general public whereas the Volvo YCC was meant to be just a concept.. “your concept.” The best and most popular ideas from the YCC were supposed to be integrated into the next rounds of Volvos — but I’m not if any ever made it. Or, if they did, they were not heralded as “woman-friendly.” And while the Volvo YCC female design team came up with many features meant to appeal to the needs of real women, the car still seems a bit… ridiculous?  Are the most important things to me, as a female driver, really the easy clean paint finish and space for my ponytail?

Looking, as always, to the wisdom of Jezebel commenters to provide some perspective on what features women really want in cars:
“How about a retractable vibrator attached to the steering column for those times when you’re stuck in traffic and bored to death?”
or “At least it’s not a Dodge LaFemme. We’ve come that far.”

Indeed, we have :)

[Built for Blahniks: A Chevy for the High-Heels Crowd - Time]
[A Gas Pedal Built for Stilettos - Time video]
[Your Concept Car - Volvo press release]
[Gizmag Review - Volvo Concept Car designed by women for women]
[HowStuffWorks - How the Volvo Your Concept Car Works]
[Chevy Builds Car for Carrie & Co - Jezebel]

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:

• 88% male
• median annual income of $80,000 (US dollars)
• 90% majority/10% underrepresented minorities (blacks, Hispanics, American Indians/Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians/other Pacific Islanders)

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]