Designing for the emerging market

Interactions recently published an interesting article on designing for the emerging market. "An emerging market is generally defined as one that has not yet fully developed but that has a middle class vital enough to attract goods and services from developed-and increasingly globalized-economies."

Some interesting snippets:
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The most serious mistakes designers make in preparing products for emerging markets usually occur before they even set pen to paper. Failure to understand the target market covers a multitude of sins, but sometimes unfamiliarity with the target market results in a stunningly fundamental oversight.

Case in point: Kellogg’s bid for a place at the Indian breakfast table.

“Kellogg’s set up a branch in India and started producing cornflakes…What they didn’t realize was that Indians, rather like the Chinese, think that to start the day with something cold-like cold milk on your cereal-is a shock to the system,” says Indian cultural critic Homi Bhabha. “And if you pour warm milk on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, they instantly turn into wet paper [4].”

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Wider populations in emerging markets need simple solutions with the right price point. When Procter & Gamble introduced disposable diapers into the Brazilian market, it went in with its top-end model, which failed to sell. Only after offering a less-sophisticated diaper, half the price of the top-end version, was the company able to grow the market [9].

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Nokia, the leading manufacturer of mobile phones in developing economies, puts years of research into the markets in which it sells. It keeps a full-time design staff dedicated to studying the practices of users at work and at play. Recent Nokia models have featured a multiple phonebook to support phone sharing-common among emerging-market families-as well as dust resistance and a user interface in up to 80 languages. The phone is also equipped with a prepaid tracker to cater to the vast majority of emerging-market users who use prepaid service plans.

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Conventional design methods are fine for conventional markets. Founded on familiar use patterns, cultural values, and market expectations, the processes and techniques keep designers well within their comfort zone. Successful design for emerging markets, on the other hand, requires radical innovation. It demands culturally sensitive and sometimes unorthodox approaches that can throw a designer off balance. But it’s only when designers transcend conventional thinking about product design that they come to really understand their target market and users and create more lasting and valuable products.

Read the full article:

http://interactions.acm.org/content/?p=1205

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