A Woman's Place in the Great Outdoors

Alexia’s Master’s Thesis followed a human-centered design approach to develop a suite of design offerings that honors and celebrates the gutsy women engaging in the outdoors, arguing for a more inclusive and diverse space.

Human-Centered Design / Design Research / Product Design / Service Design / Experience Design

PROGRAM DETAILS
School of Visual Arts Products of Design MFA program

September 2017-May 2018

The Challenge

How might we empower women to engage in activities in the great outdoors with confidence?

Inspiration

In 2015, as Alexia was learning rock climbing, she attended an event organized by Flash Foxy, a group of women dedicated to celebrating and empowering women climbers. Through this event, she met her climbing partner Janice, who quickly became a friend and a mentor. Janice’s guidance and support helped her develop her climbing technique and become more comfortable in this new space. She also began to understand the importance of community and women mentors in traditionally male-dominated spaces.

As she delved deeper into the subject, she discovered that while the experiences of women in the outdoors were analogous to those of women in other male-dominated spheres, the women making headway outside were breaking the norms by pushing away fear and caution—which as author Carolyn Paul points out, is an attitude that is all too present in the way in which we traditionally raise girls—to embrace bravery and risk instead. Theses latter two traits are not typically considered “female” as they are rarely inculcated in women at a young age. This, combined with the challenges and benefits of spending time outdoors, is what allowed the gutsy women who inspired this thesis to build the confidence and self-awareness to break through these barriers.

Human-centered research + design principles

In-depth secondary research, followed by a variety of participatory activities, like a co-creation workshop and 1-on1 interviews with users and experts—including women engaging in the outdoors, women in business, psychologists, and designers—revealed common threads and themes, which Alexia distilled into a set of design principles to drive her design thinking forward.

Design offerings

Armed with a set of actionable design principles Alexia was able to drive her design offerings forward. Each one of the projects below addresses these challenges head on.

She Ventures Club

App + Experience Design

The She Ventures Club is an organization that enables a vibrant community of women to come together around outdoor activities, to learn from each other in a supportive environment. Through the website, the app and the physical tools the She Ventures Club provides a space for women to share skills, find mentorship and build confidence.

Bivvi, Blaze + Spark

Speculative Objects

Bivvi, Blaze and Spark is a collection of flashlight/vibrators designed specifically for outdoorsy women. By framing these as part of the essential kit for outdoor adventuring, they make pleasure an essential part of womanhood too.

CARA: NothinG will stop us.

Physical Product Design

Cara—from the word carapace, as the shell of a turtle—is a menstrual product and waste carrier designed for use in multi-day trips outdoors. It features an expandable waste collection container at the center, and two separate dry enclosures  to keep unused menstrual products, toilet paper, and/or wipes clean and ready to use.

OUT_fit: Dare to try

Service Design

Out_fit is a digital platform that recommends outdoor products to women based on their body type and activity, while providing crucial data to outdoor gear companies to better serve a growing and diversifying clientele.