Initial Thoughts on Reading Mismatch

Reflection on Kat Holme’s Mismatch

I just completed reading Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes this weekend and it is filled with Post-it notes. Although a compact read, the message is a framework to revisit, practice, refine, and implement.

There are dozens of gems in the book as well. Each chapter closes with main takeaways for easy reference to a summary of learnings.

I love how a book can speak directly to the work you’re doing now and that is what’s happening with this reading. I’m researching an on-boarding flow for a digital product right now and chapter 6 of the book speaks directly to this with Holme’s references to the gender and software studies of Margaret Burnett.

What I’m reflecting on right now is this insight: that there is a gender distribution when using software, particularly with learning styles. When it comes to on-boarding, males tend to cluster around tinkering through a product. Women spread out across the spectrum from guided on-boarding to tinkering. The takeaway is to design a sense of belonging for all users in the on-boarding process.

I’m left wondering:

• How does my learning style bias my design decisions in designing for boarding?
• How does the learning styles of my product team bias our design decisions in designing for boarding?
• Which types of scaffolds can be removed for user on-boarding for those who fall in the middle of the learning spectrum?
• Do users who tinker need a sense of achievement when completing their own inquiry based on-boarding?
• What if we designed for learners with specific learning differences first? And applied those mismatches to similar users?

More thoughts on this book to come. Pick up a copy at this link here: Mismatch.

David is a Product Designer at City of Wind Design, a design studio that specializes in serving startups through UX design & software development with a bias toward accessibility & sustainability. To learn more about David Pinedo visit: https://www.davidpinedo.com or follow @davidpinedo24 on Twitter.