Why wearable tech is unwearable

Belindar Parmar, CEO of Lady Geek and founder of Little Miss Geek thinks that current wearable devices are “emblematic of a lack of empathy that pervades the technology industries.“

“Empathy is the ability to see the world from somebody else’s perspective. In order to develop products that customers want to buy the vendors must first attempt to relate to their audience and understand the desires and motivations of their customers.

Unfortunately most technology companies see empathy as a ‘soft’ and overtly feminine skill that’s downgraded compared to the ‘hard’ skills of engineers. The tech industry traditionally favours individuals who are systemisers — these are people who are able to work with hierarchies, processes and complex inanimate systems.

These are great skills to have and many of the world’s best companies have discovered how to extract the best from this kind of person.

Unfortunately companies dominated by systemisers tend to ignore the human aspect. The end-user does not figure within its circuit schematics and design goals. I’ve met people for whom the user is an unfortunate and pesky interface problem — best avoided or left to the marketing types.”