A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
A global marketing campaign failed due to interpreting consumer insights through a Western lens, missing culturally relevant meanings.
-
•
Diversity at lower organizational levels is insufficient; diverse decision-makers are critical to avoid blind spots and costly mistakes.
-
•
Product messaging focused on power resonated in Western markets but failed in religious or post-communist regions where choice was a better frame.
-
•
Diverse leadership correlates with improved company earnings—every 10% increase in higher-level gender diversity can increase earnings by 8%.
-
•
Diversity challenges extend beyond marketing and research into industries like AI and venture capital, where lack of diverse perspectives leads to missed opportunities.
-
•
Fenty Beauty’s success exemplifies how diverse founders address unmet market needs ignored by less diverse incumbents.
-
•
On ramps (entry opportunities) and broken rungs (career advancement barriers) limit diversity progression, especially for women and people of color.
-
•
Voice and agency matter; having diverse people present is not enough if they lack the power or safe space to express authentic views.
-
•
Organizations often underestimate the importance of diversifying research teams, not just participants, to deepen insight quality.
-
•
Creating open dialogue environments and sponsoring diverse talent are crucial to overcoming implicit biases and enabling authentic contributions.
Notable Quotes
"We lacked the insight to interpret what we were seeing in ways that were culturally relevant in those particular markets."
"Our Western view of power worked well in the US and Canada but didn’t play well everywhere else."
"Diversity at the bottom without diversity at the top means narrowing perspective from the top down."
"For every 10 men promoted from entry to middle management, only 7.2 women are promoted—showing the broken rung problem."
"We constantly put the burden on women of color to navigate their voice instead of creating environments where everyone’s voice has value."
"Fenty Beauty launched 40 shades at once, filling a gap no major cosmetic brand had addressed before."
"If you’re recruiting for research projects, look critically at your job descriptions for embedded barriers to diverse candidates."
"We need more diversity at all levels because that’s where truly interesting perspectives and challenges come from."
"Diverse teams help you ask better questions about who might be missing from the table or the project."
"To avoid bias in teams, it’s easier to gravitate toward what’s comfortable, but we need voices that challenge us."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Community and self-care kept me going when I felt overworked, stressed, or down during my job search."
Corey LongHiring in DesignOps: A Critical Study on How to Hire and Get Hired
September 23, 2024
"The sponge is really full — my brain is pretty full of lots of insights from the last couple of days."
Sarah Auslander Betsy Ramaccia Gordon RossInsights Panel
November 18, 2022
"Governance isn’t the byproduct of a project; digital is a system you have to design and iterate continuously."
Lisa WelchmanCleaning Up Our Mess: Digital Governance for Designers
June 14, 2018
"The future of urban living depends on our commitment to environmental justice."
Lena ShenkarenkoCollaborative Wireframing for Creating Team Alignment and Shipping Better Products
October 21, 2020
"We need to put the thinking back into design thinking."
Christian BasonExpand—Rethinking Design for Public Challenges
September 14, 2022
"We used Trello in a new way, creating boards for each week with cards representing tasks participants could complete asynchronously."
Nicole UmphressDelivering Design Education During a Global Pandemic: Lessons Learned
June 9, 2022
"Without these rules and conventions, we wouldn’t be able to improvise."
Jim KalbachJazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
November 6, 2017
"Our job as leaders is not just running the design function, but transforming the entire company culture."
Bob BaxleyTheme 4: Intro
January 8, 2024
"If we just decide to ignore demographics we're missing huge swaths of the participant experience and an opportunity to better serve our users."
Megan CamposWhat Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
March 12, 2021
