🛠️ a project scoping & opportunity identification tool

WCD_Matrix (1).jpg

what it is

The Women-Centric Eye helps: (i) acknowledge how we overlook women, (ii) co-vision a more women-centric future, (iii) evaluate solutions with a women-centric lens, and (iv) identify opportunities to build increasingly more women-centric solutions

how it works

The x-axis evaluates the degree to which a solution meets women’s needs. The y-axis represents if the solution is majority women audience vs a solution catering to all. Accordingly, the matrix can categorise solutions and their features across the quadrants: harmful, impartial, informed and holistic.

the quadrants: definitions, descriptors & examples repository*

harmful

Solutions that present as serving women, but cause harm instead.

Solutions that might	Examples
Engage in pink-washing or pinking & shrinking: when existing products are turned pink, sometimes reduced in size & quantity and given a price increase — and automatically expected to meet the needs of women	Girls scooters, razors, laptops, pens, you name it! Read more here and here.
“Sell” to women without problem and solution validation	The Pinky glove which created a plastic glove for women to take care of their menstruation needs.
Glorify women’s empowerment & economic empowerment	Multi-level Marketing (MLM) schemes have left women in debt, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services that fail to be transparent about their interest rates
Pay lip service to diversity	Instead of hiring and paying models from underrepresented backgrounds, Levi’s decided to use AI to generate them.

impartial

Solutions that present as “gender-neutral” or equal, but are prone to creating unintended consequences for women.

Solutions that might	Examples
Ignore biological differences	Apple Health was originally released without period tracking; voice recognition is more likely to understand men; women are 47% more likely to be injured and 17% more likely to die in a car crash
Depriortise gendered responsibilities likely to fall on the shoulders of women	Snow clearing policies that clear roads before sidewalks; women wait in bathroom queues 2.3x longer than men
Serve only a subset of women, ignoring diverse lived experiences	The Oculus and EEG machine wasn’t designed for Black hair
Operate within stereotypical masculinity and femininity traps and/or perpetuate stereotypes	Voice assistants default voice is female; when AI consistently thinks that doctor is male and nurse female

informed

Solutions that meet women’s needs, but often in traditional women-oriented domains, or with women as majority audience.

Solutions that might	Examples
Acknowledge women needs, but through a narrowed lens	Although reproductive health-tech has experienced a boom, many priortise pregnancy over the menstruation, menopause & more; apps fail to acknowledge the lived experience of black women (who are known to have higher maternal mortality rates). Fertility solutions focus intervention largely on women.
Scratch the surface, but have much potential to improve	Public transport trains in countries with high levels of gender-based harassment create women’s-only coaches to increase their levels of safety & comfort, but don’t do much more to retrofit the cabin to their needs. In one such instance, the handlebars still hung at average male height.
Keep women’s services as an extra or add-onz	The Nike Training App created ‘Menstrual Sync,’ a workout program to follow the cycle, but their regular workouts do not mention reproductive health.

holistic

Solutions that equitably serve women by meeting their otherwise overlooked needs, no matter the domain.

Solutions that might	Examples
Craft new definitions and narratives to increase access and break stereotypes	Tala created a new definition for credit history opening access to credit for many, Coralus has a new definition for venture funding, Bumble and Grindr are pushing the boundaries on safe online dating
Understand and build for root causes rather than surface level solutions	Callisto takes on the onus of collecting proof for sexual harassment because they recognise this burden discourages survivors from reporting
Center women’s needs, but end up impacting many more beyond them	Sehat Kahani is a tele-health app that primarily hires women not only increasing their economic empowerment but increasing healthcare access for all, Khabar Lahariya hires and trains local women to be journalists and creates news media that is locally relevant and accessible

*contribute an example to the repository

This is a living library of examples and we’d love to add more examples from around the world. Submit one here!

applying the women-centric eye

when to use it

The Women-Centric Eye is helpful for project scoping, problem definition, awareness building, evaluating solutions and priortising ideas. The tool facilitates the analysis and alignment of teams on their women-centric product/service vision and the desired impact they aim to achieve. Specifically, the tool can:

Increase awareness of how design often neglects women
Collaboratively envision a more holistic and women-centric experience
Identify areas of opportunity for greater women-centricity

how to use it / example workshop exercises

<aside> 💡 The women-centric eye is a great tool for teams to discuss opinions, agree and disagree, as they try to land on a vision forward. Allow for different lived experiences to share why they believe a certain product or service overlooked them to move towards even more holistic and women-centric.

</aside>

Try some of the exercises below with your team:

For Awareness Building: The purpose of this exercise is to build awareness of your own and others’ perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of how women are overlooked.
For Co-visioning: The purpose of this exercise is to imagine a more women-centric solution.
To Identify Opportunity Areas: The purpose of this exercise is to identify opportunity areas within a product or service that can make the experience more women-centric.
To Prioritise Ideas: The purpose of this exercise is to priortise ideas beyond feasibility.