Katie Schlott Talks Inclusive Design & Designing for Women

Be Customer Led

This week on Be Customer Led, we’re joined by Katie Schlott, a Partner at IA Collaborative.

Katie has worked with fantastic companies, including FedEx, HP, GE, and Samsung, bringing these brands to life through user-centered product, service, and brand innovation. Throughout today’s podcast, Katie covers numerous aspects of inclusive design and the need to include the perspective of all women, and their diverse experiences, in designing new products and services.

[01:42] Katie’s Journey – Katie begins the conversation by recounting her heroic journey thus far.

[06:25] IA Collaborative – Katie describes IA Collaborative’s mission and focus, how they help their clients, and her role in the process.

[10:48] Inclusive Design – Rather than relying on regular users, inclusive designers broaden the range of viable use cases. Noting that Katie offers her perspective on inclusive design.

[14:40] Designing for Women - Katie discusses the importance of incorporating a woman’s perspective into the design. Moreover, she mentions several companies contributing to this societal shift.

[24:07] Best Practices – Katie outlines some of the best practices and inclusive design principles that anyone can take away and begin exploring, testing, and learning with their data.

[29:0] National Women’s Day – Katie suggests new executive-level initiatives commemorating National Women’s Day.

[33:16] Inspiration – Katie talks about her role models whom she looks up to and the sources of inspiration for her work.

Resources:

Connect with Katie:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katie-schlott-ab314b7/

IA Collaborative: www.iacollaborative.com

Design for Women: www.iacollaborative.com/women

Mentioned in the episode:

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men: goodreads.com/book/show/41104077-invisible-women?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=g9DoKwS2mf&rank=1

Quotes

“My favorite part of the innovation process is thinking about new areas of opportunity, prototyping, building, failing multiple times…but teaching our clients, that’s the way we’re going to iterate to build something that the people you’re trying to serve actually need; as opposed to what you think they need.”

“I think about inclusive design as specifying products and services for as many people and situations as possible, while you reduce the level of ability required by each of those people.”

“Rather than use that common, average user - inclusive designers extend those possible use cases to the widest variety of people…and that’s really important, because culture assumes that a few can represent all, and that leaves a lot of people unserved.”

“When you’re designing for and marketing to the same homogeneous demographics time and time again, you’re missing out on huge areas of opportunity for equity and innovation.”

“As we celebrate International Women’s Day…think about, how are you are integrating your various products, services or solutions to solve bigger, more systemic challenges facing women?”