The Paradox of Specificity: What It Is and How It Works
Run around in UX design circles for long and you’ll certainly hear some talk about the “paradox of specificity.” But what is it, really? Don’t be deceived by its name — it’s not as technical or theoretical as it sounds.
Let’s unpack what the Paradox of Specificity is, four products that have resulted from this lovely little paradox coming in to play, and how to put this paradox into practice in your own design work.
- What is the Paradox of Specificity?
- Products that embody the Paradox of Specificity
- How to put the Paradox of Specificity to use in your own design work
- A final word
1. What is the Paradox of Specificity?
The Paradox of Specificity, simply put, tells us that adapting our efforts to the needs of a more specific audience creates solutions that are useful to a much broader set of needs. For example, rather than trying to meet the needs of all your users, look at how to help a very specific user, or a set of users with the most specific needs. According to the Paradox of Specificity, chances are you’ll end up with a product or solution that meets the needs of a much bigger audience. Putting this theory to the test in your design work can have results that are good for your customers and for business.
But enough talk about the concept — let’s look at it in practice!
2. Products that embody the Paradox of Specificity
Rollaboard Suitcase
Think of the last time you traveled — whether by air, land, or sea. Unless you’re a backpacker through and through, or dedicated to that vintage travel trunk your great aunt gave you, chances are you packed at least some of your belongings into a rollaboard suitcase. This handy piece of luggage is widely used and stands as a classic example of the Paradox of Specificity.
The rollaboard suitcase has its beginnings in the 1970s with Bernard D. Sadow’s rolling luggage. This invention looked very much like a classic suitcase, with wheels on the bottom and a leather strap attached to a top corner so the traveler could pull the suitcase along behind them.
The rollaboard as we know it today was the invention of Robert Plath — a pilot who fixed wheels on the side of his suitcase and set it upright. The rollaboard was first marketed to pilots and flight crews — a relatively narrow audience. As it turned out, the product appealed to a much broader audience. These days, the rollaboard is easily the most commonly used type of luggage for people from all ages and backgrounds.
Swiss Army Knife
In some families, gifting a Swiss Army Knife to someone is a rite of passage. When that one birthday rolls around, it’s the gift you already know your dad or your brother or your favorite aunt or uncle will give you. Whether it’s used for household tasks, camping, work, parties, or travel, one thing is certain: the Swiss Army Knife has a massive user base with an incredibly broad range of functions for such a little knife to accomplish.
This product came as a response to the needs of another very narrow audience. In the late 1800s, the Swiss military wanted to provide its personnel with a versatile and portable tool to open canned food, disassemble rifles, and carry out other practical tasks. Enter Karl Elsener: a knife maker, inventor, and — according to Victorinox — social entrepreneur in Ibach, Switzerland. In 1891, Elsener invented and supplied the Swiss military with what would become the iconic utility knife, then officially known as the Schweizer Offiziersmesser.
Then came World War II, which led to the tool being introduced to a much broader market: Americans. The Swiss Army knife, and it’s many variations, is now widely used around the globe by countless people for a myriad of tasks.
OXO Good Grips Peeler
Many of us know from (painful) experience that different vegetable peelers get the job done at varying levels of effort on the part of the user — probably having something to do with how much money we were willing to drop on a peeler. A standard utensil in most kitchens, a peeler is a product with a large user base faced with a very specific task to complete.
In 1989, Sam Farber, designed the OXO Good Grips peeler in an effort to create “more thoughtful cooking tools.” This was inspired by his wife, Betsey, whose arthritis made some common kitchen tasks difficult or even painful.
Farber considered the very specific needs of people with arthritis working in the kitchen and ended up with a product that makes life a little easier for just about anyone. The new and improved peeler turned out to be a big hit with a much wider audience and is even included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Smart Design collection.
The World Wide Web
In 1989, at a peak in a long evolutionary process, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Yes, that Web. The one you’re accessing now; that you use the Internet to surf around and explore ideas and gather information and countless other tasks.
The Web was originally known as “The Mesh,” and was intended to facilitate information-networking between scientists and academics at universities and other institutions around the world — yet another very narrow audience with a specific set of tasks to complete.
While Buzzfeed quizzes and “fake news” may not have been in the original plans, the Web has undeniably become a fundamental part of what keeps the developed world functioning, connected, and rapidly evolving.
3. How to put the Paradox of Specificity to work in your own design process
So how does all of this factor into your daily work as a UX professional? It’s most useful in the early stages of developing a product or in ideating new or revised features for an existing product. It’s also a fantastic way to start thinking about how to make your designs more inclusive. Let’s unpack that.
The temptation is often to design for everyone, which is quite a task and can easily send a project running in too many directions all at once. At the same time, you don’t want a product that even unknowingly excludes users — that’s simply bad for business. So how do you strike a balance? This is where some intentional experimentation can make a difference: enter the Paradox of Specificity.
Practical examples
For the sake of illustration, let’s say we’re building a meal planning app together. Users will be able to find recipes, make shopping lists, and store and share their favorite recipes. We’re in the ideation phase, and we toy with the Paradox of Specificity by following a line of thought that starts with, “Who is the precise user we’re designing for?”
User personas and persona spectrums are fantastic tools to implement at this point as they’ll help us consider users with more specific needs. Let’s look at two examples: the first related to ability (widely applicable), and the second to dietary restrictions (not relevant to all projects, but certainly to our hypothetical scenario).
Designing for a difference in ability
We could start by looking at how our app would work for someone with permanent, limited use of one or both arms/hands. They want to do some meal planning, but it’s difficult and tiring (if not impossible) for them to do that without assistance on our app if everything requires touch. The resulting design might then include a voice interface that allows users to search for and share recipes, and make lists and notes — all hands-free.
Would this only benefit someone with a permanent condition? Absolutely not. It would benefit a user whose dominant hand is in a cast for several weeks, or one whose hands are currently occupied with, let’s say, washing dishes.
Designing for dietary restrictions
Perhaps we imagine our user to be part of a dietary support group that gathers once a month to share a meal. They want to find recipes that accomodate the group’s collective allergies or sensitivities, calculate the measurements for the number of people in the group, make a shopping list with the right ingredients and quantities, and share the recipes with members of the group who enjoyed the meal. That is a very specific audience and a very specific set of tasks to complete.
As we develop our app with these things in mind, perhaps we create a search feature that allows users to search for recipes by dietary restrictions, and another to include or exclude specific ingredients. We also create ways for them to save and share their favorite recipes, and comment on them publicly or privately.
Will these features only serve the very specific user we’ve had in mind? No. In fact, they may make the app even more usable by larger groups of users, including:
- Families who want to get better at meal planning in general and want a more streamlined way to generate meal plans and shopping lists
- Parents of picky eaters: They can’t get their toddler to eat broccoli, but they think they might be able to sneak some carrots into the mix. These parents could easily search for recipes that exclude one ingredient and include the other.
- Individuals who are trying to find out their food sensitivities or who have recently been diagnosed with an allergy. We can provide easy customization of the experience from the very beginning.
- Users who follow a vegetarian, vegan, kosher, or any other major diet.
- Even people who aren’t concerned with food sensitivities or restrictions could find the recipe + shopping list + sharing + notes features useful!
4. A final word
So there you have it. Four examples of existing products that demonstrate the effect and value of the Paradox of Specificity, and just one example of the many ways you might experiment with the paradox in your design work.
Forrester’s Inclusive Design Imperative suggests that companies would benefit from designing for a smaller segment of their users. According to this report, many products are designed for 80% of their users, leaving the other 20% (those with more specific needs) to a less than ideal user experience. What if we started designing for the 20%?
Put the Paradox of Specificity to the test! Design for the 20% of your users who deal with more specific needs and see what happens. If history has anything to teach us — as it does in the examples of the rollaboard suitcase, the Swiss Army Knife, the OXO Good Grips peeler, and the World Wide Web — you’re likely to end up with a product that will benefit and provide a delightful experience to users you didn’t even know could benefit from your product.
About the author
Emerson is an Editor at CareerFoundry and a New Mexican transplant to Berlin. They’re a nonbinary human with an MFA in creative writing and a passion for UX design.
