Do Men and Women Have Different Design Preferences?
Posted on | June 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
By Holly Buchanan
Whenever I’m in a meeting about website design, I hear terms like “good design,” “bad design,” “professional design,” “unprofessional design.” It always makes me ask the question – how do you know?
In my marketing to women online research, it’s been hard to find credible research on what website designs appeal to men and to women. I have three big questions:
- What criteria determines whether a design is “good” or “bad”?
- Do our own preferences influence what we consider to be good design?
- Do men and women have different design preferences?
Gloria Moss finally answers those questions in her new book Gender, Design and Marketing. Gloria Moss was part of the University of Glamorgan research study that found men prefer websites designed by men and women prefer websites designed by women.
If you are a company marketing to women, heads-up. That slick black website with all those sharp edges and compartmentalized information may not work for her as well as a brighter more open website design with more curves and less formal font.
The research in Gender, Design and Marketing points to many differences between what women prefer and what men prefer. Here are just a few:
- We are drawn to images of people of our own gender.
- Men are more likely than women to create design with a technical look.
- Women prefer rounded shapes to linear ones, and detailed surfaces to plain ones.
- Citing a study by Franck and Rosen – “whereas male subjects drew faces in profile, female subjects drew them in full frontal position.”
- Women prefer the use of more color, especially brighter colors.
- Men prefer subject matter that depicts “comparative advertising appeals.” Women prefer subject matter that depicts “harmonious relationships.
These preferences are pretty deeply ingrained and start at an early age.
Real-Life Example
Look at these two examples of websites featuring celebrity news:
WonderWall
iVillage
Right now it seems the uber “cool” thing is to have a black website. I’m just not sure how effective that is with women, especially women over the age of 25. The reverse type is really difficult to read. I certainly prefer the iVillage design with brighter colors rounded corners and a more open, less compartmentalized design.
Does your design attract women?
Gender, Design and Marketing, combined with my own research, has changed the way I look at design. I recently attended an art show and was amazed at how accurately I could determine whether a painting was created by a male or female.
Even if you look at artwork, you can see how women incorporate design aesthetics and images that appeal to them, while men incorporate design aesthetics and images that appeal to them.
If you want to create advertising, product packaging or websites that appeal to and are persuasive for women, make sure you understand design aesthetics and images that appeal to women.
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One Response to “Do Men and Women Have Different Design Preferences?”
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June 17th, 2009 @ 5:40 am
Holly,
Extraordinarily facinating article. Great ideas, suggestions and point of differentiation. We had the creative, branding, and color template desinged by women. Had spoken to 4 other agencies before we chose.
Keep up the great work.
Anne