Where Are We Looking? Understanding How Disability Influences Consumer Choices

One of the most useful ways to understand disability is as a market energy influencing decision-making in every domain of life.

Of course, businesses and brands are very much interested in knowing how people make decisions. And so lots of money is often thrown around in an attempt to understand the people they most hope will buy from them.

Such research began with approaches that resemble instrumental psychology (motivations, expectations, triggers) before expanding to increasingly intelligent and well, incredibly specific indicators.

Today, sophisticated businesses and brands now know much about our preferences, habits and behaviours — so much so that many of us would be rather uncomfortable to know just how much.

Yet the impact of disability on these purchasing decisions has remained elusive and difficult to measure. And for good reason, given the extraordinary diversity of disability and its habit of transcending every category of identity or consumer persona.

In some businesses, one’s ability may be directly linked to a particular product or service delivery. But for many others, it is a second-order or third-order effect, and therefore difficult track by traditional consumer metrics.

But it would be a mistake to conclude that there’s no value to be found in understanding the impact of disability on decision-making.

We’re neither looking in the right places nor using the right senses.

This post was created with Typeshare