Historically, product innovation has focused on the largest segments, leaving many groups behind. This created a continuous cycle in which a select few would identify gaps in a market, develop a product based on their interpretation of those gaps, and over time add new features to appeal to the intended majority. While this cycle may have been perceived as successful, the reality is that it left many people out, creating and exacerbating challenges for those who cannot access digital products due to financial, geographic, mental, physical or emotional reasons.
Recent data show that 73% of Gen Z members buy or advocate brands based on their beliefs and values, suggesting that companies are held to higher standards to create products that work for everyone. To succeed in today's market, companies must build for all segments, and expand to all: this is the new path to accelerated and inclusive product innovation.
Creating more equitable experiences not only leads to more products that can be used by more people, but can also generate greater business impact with advances that address unique challenges and Help build brand trust.
Building a path to product equity
Organizations that intentionally create products for the full spectrum of human differences mean they are building for equity, considering those who have historically been excluded from the process. This can help improve the way products are created within your company and across the industry over time. Product equity teams are known to partner, support and educate others throughout the product and company development process, helping teams make decisions that consider gender, race, age, ethnicity , ability, culture and all other human variabilities.
The full power of emerging technology cannot be harnessed without a diverse set of imaginations to fuel it.
Most companies have adopted inclusive design practices, working to figure out who was historically included and who was left out of the product development process to ensure a diverse set of people have their place at the table. Equity, however, thinks across the spectrum, encompassing inclusive design practices while measuring accountability, understanding nuances, and interpreting and interrogating systems. This defines a practice for considering all forms of diversity and human difference throughout the product design and development process.
Creating equitable products is not simply about altruism. Exploring possibilities for new customers and new markets, while continuing to leverage the needs and experiences of current customers, creates opportunities for market expansion, penetration and growth. With this, we share five top foundational strategies for those starting their journey toward creating equitable products and tools.
1. Implement product equity from the beginning and beyond
By building products with equity in mind, teams can launch products faster, to broader audiences, with greater success and lower risk. Too often, quick fixes for digital products create dangers ranging from larger errors to greater user accessibility challenges.
Whether for accessibility, inclusive design, or other unique use cases, these processes should be implemented early in product development lifecycles, rather than incorporated after products are shipped, which can end up being more expensive for the company. organization.
By leveraging the expertise of product equity teams, organizations can leverage their support to help ensure that not only historically underinvested communities, but also teams, organizations, and companies, are included in the product development process. be responsible for the results.
2. Prioritize equity throughout the organization
To help product teams incorporate equity into the development process, organizations should make equity a priority in all aspects of their products, services, and company culture. This will help product teams create real results for people and elevate shared thinking and goals to create frameworks, mechanisms and approaches so that equity is prioritized across the board.
To do this, organizations must first evaluate their goals and principles to examine how teams are driving products and whether they are creating equitable products and experiences. Otherwise, organizations should look to restructure their principles to guide them in creating more equitable processes in the life cycle of a product. This should be modeled in all areas, from accessibility to inclusive design.
For example, at Adobe, they re-evaluated their approach to accessibility, establishing new principles that align with their core values and form the basis of what they believe, which is that everyone should be able to create, engage, and interact with digital experiences.
Three principles – partnership, transparency and innovation – serve as a guide as we carefully build inclusive technology that makes a difference in people's lives. Guided by new accessibility principles, an “Accessibility Board” can be created to set strategy, review progress and monitor commitment to supporting people with disabilities.
The goal of said Board, including all leaders from various functional areas and roles, with their perspectives and knowledge, drives important initiatives to better prepare the organization for the future.
3. Build reciprocal and co-creative community relationships
Today, interpreting qualitative insights is often a multidimensional challenge in which researchers create themes based on their understanding of participant feedback.
These insights are then passed on to product owners and designers, who further filter participants' goals, experiences, and challenges through their own interpretations, based on data deemed achievable, desirable, or favorable for predetermined outcomes.
This knowledge gathering process is inadequate. Even the intentional inclusion of racial/ethnic, gender, age, ability, and geographic diversity factors in the selection of research participants is often inadequate.
To be successful, product teams must introduce a co-creative process where they partner with communities and experts to leverage their lived experiences. Representation is vital to identifying opportunities that we may have missed before.
4. Reevaluate success
Reassessing success is also a conversation about power: the power to influence policies, metrics, goals, and outcomes.
It's a question of: "Are we willing to feel the pain?" This pain is metaphorical, but it is a provocation to question the ability of leaders to articulate what barriers exist, to be clear about the amount of risk they are willing to take in balancing potential metric loss with social benefit.
Losing metrics is a fear that is inextricably linked to a company culture focused on short-term profits and market gains over long-term impact. When considering the long-term impact of these approaches, leaders should consider benefits such as increased brand trust and legitimacy, greater market penetration, new market segments, as well as efficiency and cost reduction.
While these are not easily or immediately quantifiable, each is a direct result of focusing on previously overlooked communities and creating digital products with those communities involved.
5. Build for one, expand to many
Build for the many: Most digital product teams focus on this group of people who have little to no problems accessing and using digital products.
What is left out are the people who are skeptical of the product and those who cannot access the product due to mental, physical, emotional or geographical limitations. This target group of people is often where true innovation lies.
Taking advantage of the margins is imperative both for the innovation of products and to obtain equitable results for people who use digital products. The full power of emerging technology cannot be harnessed without a diverse set of imaginations to fuel it.
Companies should consider directed universalism, a concept developed by John A. Powell, director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, according to which policies are developed with a universal goal, but the approach to achieving that goal differs depending on specific social identities.
In product development, Targeted Universalism focuses on the intersectional identities of the most marginalized of the marginalized to develop strategies that serve these groups and help achieve a universal goal.
For example, this universal goal could be creating a bank account, traveling, or publishing content. Product teams can work to understand the needs and limitations of their most marginalized customers and co-create strategies to help achieve that goal.
Looking to the future of digital products
This overview only scratches the surface. The goal is to set a new standard for how the tech industry builds products by creating more equitable processes in all aspects of product research, design and development.
While persistent work will be needed across the organization, a framework can be created that ensures historically underinvested communities are considered, reflected, and respected in the product development process and accountability mechanisms.
With buy-in, structure, goals, and a little optimism, the potential for impact and innovation is infinite and greater equity can be achieved.
