W.A.F.
Sometimes, being a female geek is good fun: some of the problems and pre-occupations of the majority of male geeks simply do not apply. I was reminded of this when I was browsing the SlimDevices forum and came across a brilliant thread where people post photos of their SqueezeBox nestled in among the rest of their hi-fi equipment. Looking at (and listening to) other people’s systems fascinates me almost as much as listening to my own system, so I was glued. Anyway, one of the contributors asked another why his speakers (designed for stand mounting) were sitting on the floor, and was told that he hadn’t been able to find stands with a high enough W.A.F. Those of you who are hi-fi buffs or display their geekery in other gadgety fields will know that W.A.F. stands for Wife Acceptance Factor.
To quote Wordspy:
wife acceptance factor n. In an object, especially an electronic device, that normally appeals only to men, the qualities or features added to or modified in the object to make it acceptable to women.
And there’s a further explanation:
The reality is that most traditional hi-fi equipment has been designed to appeal to male tastes, and consequently, more typically resembles scientific tools and industrial test equipment than your average home furniture.
You see, that’s a problem that I just don’t have. Not only do I not have a wife (or a problem with H.A.F.), I positively love equipment supposedly designed to appeal to men. Show me something that looks like an oscilloscope or is fashioned out of a huge, hand-machined lump of aircraft-grade aluminium, and I’ll get the urge to pay someone lots of money for it. Of course hi-fi equipment should primarily sound good before anything else, but the W.A.F. refers to the appearance of an object, how expensive it is, or how difficult and inconvenient it is to use. All of which (apparently) women object to.
W.A.F. (or the mis-perception of it) is probably responsible for all those gadget manufacturers who think that if they make their gadget pink (or cover it with diamanté), 90% of the female population will be falling over themselves to buy it. They are wrong. Instead, I suspect that the majority of W.A.F. related conflicts arise because women who are not interested in hi-fi don’t want their husbands spending half of their income on ruinously expensive stuff (and what the stuff is hardly matters in that context), or their living room to be filled with large lumps of metal and cables.
Me? I love big lumps of metal.
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Oh I agree. I despise most electronics 'designed' for women. Just because it's pink and/or fuzzy does not mean women will want to buy it. I prefer the more masculine designs because they are normally more attractive. And built to work first.
Disclaimer: I have a stupid pink Razr because my husband already had a black one and they had no other colours.
by Rae @ 08/01/2008 8:51 pm • Permalink •
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Ha, this is very amusing. You are right on with the observation about cost and clutter driving WAF. I also am a woman that enjoys gadgets. However, I have a DPAF I must address with every gadget and equipment purchase. My partner doesn't like it when I spend money on things that fill our house with metal and clutter. She rolled her eyes every time I watched a CES video news segment. Women.
by Stephanie @ 08/01/2008 9:45 pm • Permalink •
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You should become a radio ham - the gadget possibilities are endless!
Having just paid for our next holiday, the necessary WAF level around here has just dropped considerably. Unfortunately the gadget budget went on said vacation!
Almost the reverse concept is the PAF - the parental annoyance factor. This is a characteristic of toys bought for small children for friends and relatives foolish enough to have any. The standard unit of PAF is the BTU/hr. (Breakage Tendency Units per hour). 1 BTU/hr means that each adult in the room will want to break the toy once for every hour it's in use. The trick is to see how high a PAF toy you can buy before the parents sabotage it when kiddies are in bed!
by Andy Cunningham @ 08/01/2008 9:54 pm • Permalink •
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I have had 20+ kilos of steam powered Yaqin warming my living room for the past 4 years, at £127 including shipping from Hong Kong the best value in electronics I have ever purchased.
I am having terrible trouble resisting buying an Asus Eee, there's no way I could justify it to the distaff side as we already have a PC, 4 laptops, a Mac Mini and a PDA........................ But I'm sure I'll find a way!
by Jonathan Briggs @ 09/01/2008 12:57 am • Permalink •
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I'm with you. I'm glad they make some of that stuff in pink-and-fluffy editions; it lets me rule them out right away, without wasting the time to discover the other inevitable faults.
(I do care about usability of a gadget, but it's in comparison to utility. The more something otherwise addresses my needs, the more usability problems I'm willing to put up with.)
by Monica @ 09/01/2008 2:53 am • Permalink •
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Rae: Oh, I forgot the fuzzy ones
Yes, built-to-work is a very important point.
Stephanie: Heh :-D I like DPAF.
Andy Cunningham: Don't tempt me! Would toys with a high PAF be the extremely noisy and/or repetitive ones by any chance? I've been exposed to a Bop-It, and I can see how you'd want to smash it after about 2 minutes.
Jonathan Briggs: Bargain! I'm also looking sideways at the Asus, thinking it would be ideal to take to Brazil to work on, but I'm trying to resist.
Monica: Utility and usability often go hand-in-hand, I find.
by bsag @ 09/01/2008 7:38 pm • Permalink •
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The DS does come in pink and various pastels, as did the Gameboy, and those are both proper gadgets, but I suspect that that is more to do with appealing to children. Grown-ups of both sexes usually seem to want the white one.
The same goes for phones I think. If any manufacturer really thinks they're appealing to more than about 1% of adult women with that sort of thing they don't know their market (and/or are just infantilising women generally).
Incidentally, I agonised for a bit about the EEE and then thought "look, I'm going to end up buying one anyway, I might as well just order one now, stop worrying and get to have it for longer", if that's any help.
by fridgemagnet @ 11/01/2008 9:14 am • Permalink •
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So fridgemagnet..... Does it do what it says on the can? I think we should be told, before we all rush out and buy one!
by Jonathan Briggs @ 11/01/2008 2:02 pm • Permalink •
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Oh, it's terrific. I've been having too much fun playing with it to actually blog about it, which I suppose I should do now. It's certainly the best present you could ever get for anybody who opens terminals voluntarily (and has fairly good eyesight).
by fridgemagnet @ 12/01/2008 1:23 pm • Permalink •
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That's torn it!
by Jonathan Briggs @ 12/01/2008 1:28 pm • Permalink •
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