Comments | differenceblog: Designing for Gender

differenceblog

Designing for Gender

Feb 13, 2007 09:27

When it comes to website design, men and women may have very different tastes. Moss et al (2005) found that men preferred straight lines, few colors, and formal language and typeface far more than women did. Moss et al also found that men preferred websites designed by men, and women preferred sites designed by women. However, Moss et al's ( Read more... )

attitudes, web-based learning, gender, internet use, websites, ict, design, sex differences, web design, internet, culture, font, internet commerce, gender differences, color

Comments 4

bemusing February 13 2007, 14:51:57 UTC

Font and aesthetics do play a large part in my personal preferences. I tend to appreciate things more when it looks like a little effort has been put forth. Even with something such as a news page--give me a little visual pleasantry.

More than fonts/graphics though, I react to colors. I have always avoided both Blockbuster and Food Lion because the overbearing lemon yellow just offends me, heh.

differenceblog February 13 2007, 14:57:52 UTC

Nita Rollins (2005) found that women mentioned color in reviewing websites 75% more than men did. :)

ukelele February 13 2007, 16:40:42 UTC

Apparently this is yet another of those arenas where I'm secretly male. (I always thought the preference for clip art connoted being unholy, not female...alas.)

differenceblog February 13 2007, 16:54:14 UTC

I think it's similar to gendered writing studies that found that the more professional a writing excerpt was, the more it skewed male. A tendency towards conservative, traditional design is classified as more masculine.

Again, the study was using university students. I'd be interested to see whether an older sample showed this much differentiation. I suspect it wouldn't.