Standards - a personal perspective.

First: I have a confession to make.

I am a size zero.

That's right, the most Hated dress size on the planet. US zero, UK six. Tiny. Wee. Very, very thin. But probably not as thin as you think. Here's a not-very-attractive pic that should give you an idea of what size zero actually looks like on a person (In this case, a person wearing wetsuit bottoms, but still):

Now, if I didn't mention that I was a size zero, you probably wouldn't guess. Because I don't look that thin, right? Not scary-anorexic-model thin, not gym-mad thin (I eat two hot meals a day and ride a bike), not like a size zero.

Because up until a couple of years ago, I wasn't.

Here's the thing: dress sizes aren't standard. They used to be, though. The first survey of women's body sizes was taken in America between 1949 and 1952 by the then National Bureau of Standards, and it hasn't changed much since then. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since then. Specifically, two things have changed:

Change 1: Women's bodies. Women in the West are now taller, fatter, and have much bigger breasts proportionate to overall bodyfat.

Change 2: Marketing. Specifically, vanity sizing. The principle is simple: if a woman thinks of herself as size UK 14, but fits into a UK 12 skirt in the shop, she feels Really Good About Herself and will be more likely to buy the skirt.

Result: Today, the standards are no longer useful, but in addition, they're being used wrongly. What we have is bad standards being used badly.

...the end result of all this is that I can't actually buy clothes in most shops. I can usually find something in shops marketed at teenagers (thank you, Top Shop), but for adult clothes that you might wear to work? No dice. I have, however, learned to sew - hardly an item in my office wardrobe hasn't been tampered with.

That's the analysis, now for the synthesis.

1. Bad standards are bad for business. I want to spend money on clothes, but can't, because of bad standards. That's money the shops aren't getting.

2. Business assumptions about standards CAN be wrong. There are a lot of women about my size, and none of us can buy clothes. (UK dwellers: have a close look at the next thin woman you see - the odds are good that she will actually look a bit dishevelled. That's probably because her clothes are too big, or badly chosen because options were so few.)

3. Standards applied badly confuse customers, and reduce purchasing. I won't go into nice shops because I'm fairly sure they won't have my size, so it's probably a waste of my time. I might be wrong, but I will never know because the odds are so low I won't bother in the first place. That's more money not spent. And I certainly won't take a punt on online shopping.

These three principles can be applied more widely than you might think, so I'm going to apply them to elearning:

1. A lot of educators are in the market for content (yes, even paid), but if they can't find what they're looking for, they won't buy it.

2. Educators aren't necessarily looking for the things we think they're looking for. There is a long, long tail involved here, and one size most certainly does not fit all.

3. Bad and/or inconsistent standards make things (trousers, content, you name it) hard to find. If we make content difficult to find, educators will give up - and unlike people who need a new shirt, they don't ever have to come back.

Standards matter. They can never be perfect, and applied with unerring uniformity, they can be bad (the woman with a small bust and wide hips will not appreciate the uniform application of standard sizing). But the better any industry can get the standards, the better it will be able to cater to the full breadth of users.