Making ideas work.

The power of women in industrial design

Frances Mitchell
Mar 3, 2020 4:19:47 PM

We are big believers in a good mix of designers delivering better design. Part of our challenge has been that when we are advertising roles we are simply not getting enough female applicants.

More diversity in design has clear benefits. Research by McKinsey (2015) has shown that teams with a male:female ratio of 40:60 are more productive. Diversity of thought also adds huge value and leads to more successful results. So why can't we find the women?

When we dug deeper we found that the problem was part of a wider problem, a lack of women choosing more technical courses at university level. We did work: like proactively approaching our network to find female product designers, removing any inherent bias from our job postings, but still to no avail. The ratio is just not there.

After doing more research we landed on the approach of 'if you can see it you can be it'. This is why we really like Why Design, and why we are sponsoring their event this year on Wednesday 4th March. It is a great platform to showcase women in design, telling their stories and digging deep into why they chose design as a career. 

We are absolutely delighted that this year Sarah Keane (one of our superstar designers) is featured. We highly recommend checking out her story: http://whydesign.ie/interviews/sarah-keane/

Beyond the support of Why Design we are also working with the team behind the new Junior Cycle course in Ireland (school from age approx 12-15yrs), where they are driving a new approach to education that has design at its core. We are hoping that by delivering workshops to educators at that level we can address the fact that people simply don't know about product design as a career option. We can show that these 'theories' that they are teaching students have a practical outlet for business and can deliver real impact.

Great product design is a combination of glorious creative input combined with excellence in technical details. This should be appealing to girls who love both the creative and technical side of things. There is power in diversity and we want to harness it as much as we can.

If you are interested in working in Dolmen we are currently actively hiring into 3 roles:

  • Mid Level Product Designer
  • Freelance Product Designer
  • Marketing and Communications Executive

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