Hi hi! Can you please explain your role at Unbound?

Hi there! Product Development at Unbound is like the Secret Service of the United States… 

Just kidding! Though there are similarities. Our PD team plan, design, and manufacture your beloved Unbound products, as for the secret, well, new products are cherished secrets until they’re launched (still cherished after launch). As the Product Development Senior Manager, I work with the team to strategize our product plan for each year, design new products (the most fun part!), and work closely with our manufacturers to bring the designs to life and eventually to your door.

  

How does accessibility play a role in designing product? (Feel free to mention other things you’ve worked on outside of Unbound!) 

Accessibility is our design philosophy! We see accessibility in multiple facets. The first is human centered design, which includes understanding and studying human anatomy and ergonomics, considers and provides support for disability, and comforts you physically. In short, how to design a product so it fits like a glove for everyone.

To us, accessibility also means having a community (a group of babes who love you unconditionally). You speak, we listen, literally through pages and pages of user surveys and analysis. We’ve built an Unbound community together through years of joint contributions from our customers and our team – accessibility here simply means we hear you and we’re here for you.

Finally, the most cliche but important aspect, affordability. Every time we come up with a new design, pricing is always the first consideration. We believe that good design should be affordable to the 99% and enjoyed by the mass. We want you to be able to treat yourself without having to worry too much about the cost of that and whether it’ll affect your comfort of living.

What steps to do you take to ensure you’re being inclusive during the product development process? (Research, initial design, development, testing, etc)

Before we even have an idea of a new product, the first step is always to conduct and analyze user surveys. The goal is to understand how our existing and potential customers feel about their ways in exploring their sexuality, looking for unattended concerns or areas that need to be addressed. From that synthesis, we ask: how might we provide solutions for their needs? What designs can we create to solve that problem or improve an experience?

Once we narrow down a direction, we then proceed to set up parameters for the designs based on the surveys. Usually further surveys are needed to understand pain points for users who experience transitions, who have health concerns, who undergo surgeries, etc. In the actual design process, we constantly refer back to the survey and validate the functions and user interface against the survey results.

In the development process, I think one of the most noteworthy aspects is the beta testing process. We select a wide range of testers who sometimes overlap with the initial survey group, and ship product samples for them to test out whether the sample works for their anatomy, if they run into any obstacles during use, essentially shred it and tell us everything that’s potentially wrong with the design.

Last but not least, the safety testing process. We work with an internationally established lab to test the safety of all our products, which includes usability inspection to make sure the product cannot physically cause harm, chemical testing which concerns the toxins for the human body and the environment, and of course certain applicable FDA standards as well.

 

Why does accessibility matter? In all products, but especially sex toys? 

Embedded in the nature of life, sex is the most intimate and ubiquitous experience for most living beings. As a designer and product developer, I think sex toys should be as common as bandages respond to calls for healing. It’s not less important than any digital products in our life, we live and breathe so much information everyday, but how come we’re not checking in with our bodies everyday? I don’t have to list all the scientific benefits of pleasure here, as y’all probably have seen lots of that already. Sex is universal self care, and everyone freaking deserves it.

If you had the power, what is something you would redesign completely to be more accessible? Sex toy, or not? 

Not a complete redesign, more like reimagining New York City. It is probably one of the least user friendly cities I’ve ever lived in lol. The subway is so unfriendly to wheelchairs, and the street layout makes no sense, do not even mention the trash gahhhh. Yet, of all its mess and grease, the city also kind of works in many other ways. It’s the most diverse and accommodating city I’ve ever lived in, it has the most extensive subway system in the entire US, and the food here is soul healing. So I guess that’s how it is for many famous designs, it’s bitter sweet ( •̆ ᵕ •̆ )◞

Anything else you’d like to add?

I’m incredibly honored to be designing for the Unbound community. Thinking about how our designs can be self care for our customers brings a huge smile on my face! At the end of the day, that’s what a designer and developer live for!