What do user personas & buying a road bike have in common?
Since 2020 Corporate America has seen a drastic change in culture, mainly DE&I. This may be my unpopular opinion but when we started the unit around User Personas, I couldn’t help the nagging thought that assigning specific demographics to a target user could inhibit inclusion.
Don’t get me wrong; I understand that some companies’ lifeblood solely relies on targeting certain demographics. But in the time since the pandemic where nearly every corporation now has a separate division for DE&I, the user persona seems archaic and outdated.
After many test rides on bikes that just didn’t feel right, one shop finally gave me a woman’s frame to test drive and it was like a light switch clicked
Let me tell you a short story about my experience buying my current road bike, which relates to my Sprocket case study. If you’ve read my case study, you know that the most common demographics of road bike riders are Caucasian males with an average age of 36. When I went to buy my first expensive road bike, the first 4 bicycle shops I went to never mentioned to me anything about bikes/frames made for women.
After many test rides on bikes that just didn’t feel right, one shop finally gave me a woman’s frame to test drive and it was like a light switch clicked. So because these manufacturers had a user persona in mind when creating their product, they were never equipped to sell me, a woman, a bike that felt comfortable for my frame and my physiology.
The happy ending came when I found a women’s bike that fits like a glove.
I'm not discounting the user persona as a powerful tool for marketing. However, as more companies understand that their marketing or user experience is inherently noninclusive, the user persona becomes less about selling to demographics and more about making products accessible to everyone.
In the above example, it may not be the company’s area or functionality of business to start making ADA-accessible bikes but certainly, their user base applies to more than just 36-year-old Caucasian males.
I love the example of Yeti coolers. When Yeti came out, it mainly operated as an outdoor enthusiast geared company.
The happy ending came when I found a women’s bike that fits like a glove.
There were a lot of products in camo and outdoor neutral colors like ‘desert camel’ (a little joke for any of my former EOD guys out there reading this). I quickly saw Yeti’s product offerings change to be widely inclusive, offering a vast range of colors and products built for different users’ needs.
Yeti understood that people from all backgrounds have the same connection to nature that established the founding principles of the company. I’ve seen Yeti’s incredible products even break the boundaries of their original intention; watching chefs use their coolers to host culinary pop-ups or watching farmers bring their products to urban farmer’s markets.
Many corporations even give out branded Yeti tumblers to their employees.
So while it’s important for companies to have a clear concise view of what they are making and what their problem statement is solving, eliminating the user persona part of the design life cycle could open doors to inclusion, diversity, and equity they never imagined.