INSPIRED BY WOMENCreating business with people-driven innovation

— design-people casebook 2015

“By 2028 women will control nearly

three quarters (72%) of consumer

spending worldwide.”

— Boston Consulting Group, 2009

W elcome to the latest design-people casebook, Inspired by Women. Ranging from building technology to lifestyle audio, the cases here show how a gender-responsive approach to innovation and market-ing can improve your customer experience – and your bottom line.

In field after field, the emerging buying power of women is creating a new agenda for business. In Germany, for instance, the number of new female workers in the labor force has grown 10 times as fast as the number of new male workers in the last two decades. It’s part of a larger trend: the immense increase in women’s purchasing power around the world.

Female values and lifestyles ought to be a high business priority for even – or espe-cially – the most tech-oriented firms. Yet the vast majority of companies still develop their products and services chiefly for men. This book showcases companies that stand out by embracing the business potentials of the changing market.

The good news? Our research and experience shows that if you use women as a benchmark for innovation and branding, you will end up with better experiences for all users – and increased sales.

For more cases and information on our team and services, visit design-people.dk.

Meanwhile, may the material inside inspire you too!

User research Client references

USER RESEARCH & SELECTED CLIENTS

From our studio in Aarhus, Denmark, we help companies improve their customer experience through a gender-responsive approach to inno-vation and marketing. Here is a list of selected

clients we are pleased to work with.

a design-people casebook — 07

01DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL NEW LUXURY BRAND – INSPIRED BY WOMENVifa

“Focusing on women as a benchmark for the Vifa user expe-rience has given us the competitive edge we need. As a new player in a well-established market, we need to stand out – and we’ve done that by making each of our speakers an exclusive lifestyle statement with a high-quality sound core. With this strategy, we’ve embraced the emerging buying power of wom-en while still appealing to male customers.” —Michael Sørensen, CEO, Vifa In 2014, Vifa surprised the audio community by launching their Copenhagen speaker at the Stockholm Furniture Fair. The market responded with enthusiasm, and orders and dis-tribution requests flooded in from around the world. The Copenhagen made a bold statement in a saturated mar-ket: great sound performance wrapped in exclusive Nordic design. But the groundbreaking design began with a branding strategy built around the experiences of independent women with disposable incomes – a vast and growing market. design-people worked closely with Vifa to create the branding and user experience strategy, utilizing our Awareness–Buy–Use tool to map out the customer journey. Together, we de-vel-oped the designs and a communication platform to match. The business results showed the Vifa owners the value of our approach. We’re now helping Vifa develop new products to extend their portfolio and its appeal to new market segments.

design-people key contributions 01 Female-driven branding strategy 02 Product & portfolio design 03 Communication & website design

08 — inspired by women

02SMART-BUILDING CONCEPTS GROUNDED IN THE FEMALE EXPERIENCEKONE

Many leading companies have started to pay special attention to the empathy aspect of their user experience, in order to acquire in-depth insight into their users’ needs and wants. The diversity of user groups in our industry is immense – so we decided to dive deep into the specific experiences of women of different ages and transform them into innovation potentials for the industry. —Anne Stenros, Design Director, KONE

The Finnish firm KONE is a global leader in the escalator, elevator and automatic door industry. Their focus on user experience is embodied in their brand promise, “Dedicated to People Flow.”

KONE recently embarked on a new project with design-people to discover untapped potentials for innovation and excellence in the idea of people flow. The goal: to explore the shopping mall and elevator experience of female users in Europe – and to translate their wishes and their emotional and physical needs – into new concepts for the social dimension of elevator use.

We developed six concepts that will give all kinds of users a new and better experience when using elevators. They’ve inspired KONE teams to address new dimensions of people flow innovation – and to take advantage of the related business potentials.

design-people key contributions 01 User exploration & field studies 02 Female value mapping & analysis 03 Development of user experience concepts

03CONNECTING A HERITAGE BRAND WITH NEW CUSTOMERSHadeland Glassworks

“We’ve really profited from our collaboration with design-peo-ple so far. Although we’ve only started, it’s given us clear answers to what we wanted to discover, making it much easier to stake out the way forward. We’ve begun the critical process of clarifying who we will be in tomorrow’s market.” —Kari S. Roll-Matthiesen, Managing Director, Hadeland Glassworks A national cultural treasure, Hadeland Glassworks has been making fine glass in Norway for more than 250 years.

The glassblowing enterprise wanted to increase its customer appeal and engagement through new products and custoer experiences. So we conducted in-depth user studies with pro-spective female customers to discover their motivations and barriers in relation to the Hadeland brand, its current products and its point-of-sale experience.

These studies and the user experience strategies that grew out of them have become part of a larger innovation process for the company, an effort cofinanced by Innovation Norway. One notable aspect of the process has been our collaboration with Kaluna, our Oslo-based strategic partner who is helping to manage organizational change at Hadeland.

design-people key contributions 01 Field studies & touchpoint analysis of potential customers 02 Rebranding, user experience recommendations & action plan 03 Product design strategy & ideation

a design-people casebook — 09

010 — inspired by women

04CONNECTIVITY BREAKTHROUGH WITH A FEMALE BENCHMARKDanfoss

User experience and usability has been a primary focus in creating this app. The female benchmark helped us minimize complexity while prioritizing everyday convenience. With their extensive experience in this field, design-people has proved to be an excellent partner for connectivity development.” —Jesper N. Vraa, Project Manager, Danfoss Heating Solutions

Tech products for the home are developed mainly by male engineers. Their technical way of thinking has led to a wealth of sophisticated solutions. Yet many of these products do not appeal to women.

Danfoss – a global leader in indoor-climate solutions – knows this well, thanks to their work with design-people on the Female Interaction research project (see p. 11). They discov-ered that though women would like to control their home environment, their priorities tend to be different than men’s. For instance, women place a higher value on health and social well-being.

design-people had created award-winning designs for Danfoss in the past, but after the project they asked us for something more: strategic help in making their innovation culture and practices embrace female values. The result was a radical change in approach. Today, Danfoss employs a female bench-mark strategy to obtain user insights and test new product concepts – before technical implementation and design.

The latest result of the new approach is the Danfoss Link App, which lets you manage your indoor climate from the conve-nience of a smart phone. It allows you to balance energy con-sumption and comfort with the tap of a finger – so that when you’re driving home from a family skiing holiday, for instance, you can switch your house from the energy-saving vacation mode and walk in the door to a warm, welcoming home.

To develop the simple look and feel of the app and its intuitive interface, design-people employed both female and male user profiles and use scenarios. We also conducted benefit and usability testing with both groups.

The design and development teams’ sensitivity to female tech preferences is enabling Danfoss to distinguish itself from its competitors. By appealing to men and women alike, Danfoss Link is proving an excellent advertisement for the company’s indoor climate systems.

design-people key contributions 01 Female interaction strategy 02 User exploration, innovation & concept testing 03 Product & digital design

012 — inspired by women

05FROM TECH PRODUCT TO WINNING BUSINESS STRATEGYE3light

“Three months later, our improved user experience and mar-keting approach were critical in opening the door to the US market. The Danish Trade Council just awarded us its Vitus Export Prize, and we expect to sell 500,000 Mylights this year.” —Flemming Viktor Andersen, Founder, E3light E3light, a startup specializing in environmentally friendly light sources, came to design-people with the Mylight, a LED flex strip triggered by a motion sensor – an intriguing new product that was selling poorly.

We posed some critical questions: Which real-life benefits does the Mylight have – and for whom? And how might we persuade people to buy it?

After suggesting a female benchmark user, design-people explored the entire product experience from her perspective and developed a new benefit story, based on the most prom-ising female use scenarios. We then created a packaging and communication concept that women could immediately relate to their own needs – such as when they had to comfort a child in the middle of the night.

“When we first brought Mylight to market, consumers were not clear what it was good for. design-people helped us to define a female lead user, and to frame and communicate a strong benefit story by translating the product specifications into real user benefits that people could relate to.” —Flemming Viktor Andersen, Founder, E3light

design-people key contributions 01 Female user experience strategy 02 User exploration & concept testing 03 Packaging & communication

a design-people casebook — 013

06A NEW CELL PHONE EXPERIENCE FOR WELL-OFF WOMENVertu

“The result was even more successful than I had hoped. Not only did design-people give us new insights and tools for attracting female customers – they also made us realize that by addressing women, we can strengthen our appeal to men too.” —Hutch Hutchison, Head of Concept Creation and Design, Vertu

Vertu is a luxury cell phone brand based in England. As a tech company with a typical male bias, Vertu was concerned that it was excluding a crucial group of potential users: women. It asked design-people to help its design team develop a larger female customer base.

Our Female Interaction experts met with wealthy women in half a dozen countries. We used the interview sessions to analyze the brand’s innovation potential from a female per-spective. Then we worked with Vertu’s design team to identify innovation opportunities and ways to improve the purchase experience. Together we framed a new design approach to reflect the experience of prospective female users.

design-people key contributions 01 Female user exploration 02 Customer journey analysis 03 Female user experience innovation

Elevator concept for

a design-people casebook — 015

The FEMALE INTERACTION PROJECT The cases in this book build upon a strong research foundation – the three-year Female Interaction project, organized and led by design-people. The following pages describe the project and some of the key principles and tools to emerge from it.

Project facts

• 3 years (2009–2012)• 10,000+ hours• Budget: €1 million• Co-financed by participating companies and

the Danish Business Authority

Research goals

• Map out gender preferences in relation to technology products

• Use this research to establish guidelines and methods that will help companies, designers and marketers (a) develop innovative products and services that address women and (b) market them so they appeal to female values and preferences

• Develop showcases demonstrating how these innovation methods can create more meaningful and attractive offerings for both female and male users and give companies a competitive edge

Participants

• Initiator and project lead: design-people• Aarhus and Aalborg University researchers with

backgrounds in interaction design psychology, pervasive computing and user-centered design

• Market analysis experts and product development experts from three Danish technology companies, Bang & Olufsen, Danfoss and GN Netcom/Jabra

• Advisory board: experts from companies, universities and industry associations, including Fraunhofer Institut, Germany and Internationales Design Zentrum Berlin

• 75 active contributors• 1500 women and 300 men from three continents surveyed

on attitudes, views and evaluation of product and user experience concepts

WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTION TO HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN CHINA

— Chinese Women go Shopping, Newsweek, 27th of August 2010

GROWTH OF WORKFORCE SHARE IN GERMANY SINCE 1995

— The German Economic, Research Institute (DIW), 2015

15th of December 2010

1950’s—

10% 1%

20% 80%

1990’s—

40% 60%

2009—

50% 50%

016 — inspired by women

A round the world, women’s buying power has been rising far more rapidly than men’s. This trend – known as womenomics – is rooted in women’s

increasing access to education, better jobs and expanding influence in households, businesses and society. Yet numer-ous surveys confirm what most women know only too well: products and services are rarely created or marketed to satisfy their expectations.

“By 2028, women will control nearly three

quarters (72%) of consumer spending worldwide.”

— Boston Consulting Group, 2009

To address this challenge, design-people initiated the Female Interaction research project in 2009. The project was cofinanced by the Danish Business Authority, enabling design-people to assemble a team of university researchers and experts in interaction psychology, pervasive computing and user-centered design. The team worked directly with the product development and marketing professionals of three major technology companies – Danfoss, Bang & Olufsen and GN Netcom. The research team worked with more than 1500 women and 300 men on three continents to investigate their attitudes, their relation to technology and their response to several new concepts developed by design-people’s innovation team.

The project used this research to develop guidelines and meth-ods that would help companies not only to create innovative products and services that spoke directly to women, but also to market them so that they appealed to female values and preferences.

Communicator

30% Young

29%

Org

aniser

24% Aesthetically

Aware17% Traditio

nalis

t

a design-people casebook — 017

An essential part of the guidelines was a segmentation model for female tech users. One of its main goals was to avoid stereotyping when addressing the female target group. We developed the segmentation model based on a quantitative survey and a cluster analysis. It combined generic female preferences with life stages and resulted in four female tech-user profiles for Danish women aged 18 to 60:

The Young Communicator is characterized by a strong sense of belonging to different communities. She is open to new products that either make a statement or take communication to a new level.

The Aesthetically Aware woman represents the majority of women in their early 30s. She seeks identity through products, including tech products, that match her aesthetic preferences.

The Organizer is typically in her 40s and has children, a husband and a full-time job. She appreciates technology that will help her manage the balance between her busy work and private life.

The Traditionalist is strongly skeptical of new technology. The few tech products she appreciates build on traditional values and are reassuring to use.

—Segmentation of the Danish market in 2009, based on the four female

tech-user profiles

01

02

03

04

FEMALE INTERACTION – Key findings –

01 Most companies have a limited understanding of female values and preferences in their business sector.

02 To attract more female customers, a company should make sure that its products and services:

• contain a meaningful benefit story that tells the potential customer how they will improve her life

• can be used quickly and intuitively in everyday life• make her look and feel right in social situations.

03 It is important to test concepts, products and communication with women according to these criteria.

04 Women are not a homogeneous group, but they do share common values. To avoid stereotyping, effective segmenta-tion and a targeted approach are required.

05 Products and services created with a female benchmark tend to be more attractive to men too.

018 — inspired by women

During the Female Interaction project, the three participating companies applied detailed versions of these four user profiles to projects with striking success. The profiles also proved useful not only as strategic benchmarks, but also in recruiting women for user insights and concept testing. For a more in-depth presentation of guidelines and cases, design-people published Guidebook to a Female Interaction Strategy and presented it at an international conference at the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen in 2012. “A wake-up call for any CEO, aspiring entrepreneur, product marketing executive or design agency whose survival depends on customer loyalty, sales and, ultimately, profitability.”—Harding Leite, Innovation & Business Development Consultant São Paulo

Visit www.femaleinteraction.com to order/download the guidebook

a design-people casebook — 019

BEYOND GREAT DESIGN

At design-people, we begin many of our assignments by explor-ing answers to the following question: How can we create value by connecting the potentials of your offerings to the needs and desires of your prospective users?

The Female Interaction project has made it clear to us that the key to business success lies in connecting with people’s values and creating everyday benefits. Male and female preferences are often fundamentally different – and the emerging buying power of women makes it more important than ever to address women as customers and users.

As user experience experts, we can help you strengthen your bottom line, based on deep user understanding, innovation and design. Our services can address your corporate user experience strategy, the innovation of your offerings, and the design and communication of the products and services you bring to market.

As these case studies demonstrate, the payoff for our clients has been considerable. Better user experiences, more mean-ingful customer relationships, brands that stand out from the competition – and stronger sales.

Contact us today to discuss how people-driven innovation focusing on prospective customers can create more business for you.

—design-peopleVesterbro Torv 1–3, 3rd floor8000 Aarhus CDenmark—(+45) 7022 6462design-people.dk— Klaus Schroeder Strategy Director, CEO & Partner ks@design-people.dk

Vesterbro Torv 1–3, 3rd floor8000 Aarhus C

Denmark—

(+45) 70 22 64 62info@design-people.dk

—design-people.dk