One of the myths prevailing around women and technology is that technology companies think that women are not interested in technology therefore they need to ‘dumb it down’, ‘pink it up’ and ‘girlify it.’

The reality is that women are interested in technology. Four out of every ten gadgets in the UK are now bought by women.  The missed financial opportunity of NOT targeting women is calculated by Forrester at £0.6billion.

And more interesting than the stats, are the wonderful stories that women share with Lady Geek about how they feel about technology.  This woman Justine being a great example of how excited (!) she was when she got her iPad.


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Apple is a great example of a company that spends approx 70% of all its research and UI testing with women as they see women as the ‘gold standard’ in terms of their unwillingness to ‘conquer’ technology.  Women want intuitive technology that is a joy to use, and like them or loathe them as a company, Apple delivers all of it in spades.

The other tech players must get a sense of anticipation and excitement amongst women.  They must target female influencers much earlier on in the product lifecycle. They must think about what women want at every stage of the sales experience from the pre-sales mania to the post-sales experience.  They must understand that men want to conquer technology, women want to it to enhance their life.

So yes women are interested in technology.  Very interested.  Understand us.  Come talk to us.  And for god’s sake, don’t dumb down your products and talk to us as if we were 7 years old.

About Belinda Parmar

Lady Geek brings you research and Lady Geek TV gadget app news! You'll find more about it all over on http://ladygeek.org.uk

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 11:46 am and is filed under Women Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.