Website design - Gender preferences

Why men and women don't agree about websites: the secrets about men and women's web preferences G Moss and R Gunn Internet World 17 May 2006

Good news! Lots of pictures, so no danger that, following lunch …

Web design: important gap
E-commerce is in a high growth state:
usage - 934 million in 2004; 1.35 billion in 2007
2002 – 2004: 50% increase in Fs shopping online: 17m -> 28m shoppers (Forrester, 2004)

Satisfying the customer
Business survival depends on shaping
products and services around the
“ unique and particular needs” of the
customer (Hammer, Reengineering the
Corporation, 1995)

Satisfying the customer: Gender
Many markets segmented -> male and female markets
Female : grocery, furniture, books, small electrical,
OTC medicines, domestic property, cars ……
Male : SLR cameras, computers, petrol ……

Satisfying the customer: Gender
$ 64k question
Do men and women like the same kinds of design?

Web design (Moss Gunn)
Compared M and F-produced web sites.
Rated sites across 2 main measures (23 variables):
Visual
Language
30M and 30F in UK
90M and 90F websites
UK, France and Poland

Results UK / France / Poland p < 0.001 Male / females in images p < 0.001 Inanimate / animate p < 0.05 Regular / irreg typeface p < 0.001 Colours in typeface p < 0.001 Conventional layout p < 0.05 Predominant colours p < 0.001 Lines / round p < 0.001 Pictures 2D or 3D p < 0.001 Tone of words p < 0.001 Expert language p < 0.05 Own achievements p < 0.001 Denigration p < 0.001 Site map

A comparison of the male and female tendency to use straight lines : UK

A comparison of the male and female tendency to use large numbers of typeface colours : UK

A comparison of the male and female use of informal / formal language or a combination of both: UK

Male website example : 1

Male website: example 2

Female website example: 1

Female website example : 2

Web preferences
67 respondents (38M + 26F):
Men prefer male-produced websites
Women prefer female-produced websites

Causes of differences
Evolution of visual skills in response to division of
labour from 1.7m – 10,000 BC (from lower palaeolithic to
end of Pleistocene epoch).

Implications
Books
Groceries
Higher Education
Beauty

Books
Sector with second largest number of e-commerce shoppers in US (Nielsen Media Research Study, 1999)
M / F near parity
US (Nielsen 1999) 55% of online consumers = F; UK 56% of paperbacks bought by F (Mintel)

Amazon

Merlin

Groceries
Online parity between men and women shoppers (Research and markets, 2002)
Tesco – market leader in UK with 27% of the market, 10% above its nearest rival (TNS, Feb 2004)
www.tesco.co.uk

Universities
Competitive market
M/ F near parity (Fs= 53% of f’t u/gs and 66% of p/t )
Analysis of 32 HEI websites: 30 with overall masculine orientation

University web designers 73 19 7 74 University websites (%) Interview response rate (%) M + F F M Gender of person(s) designing the University websites

Beauty
Beauty
Predominantly female market
Men are half as likely as women to have health and beauty treatment

Beauty

Beauty 73 4 18 78 Beauty salon websites (%) Interview response rate (%) M + F F M Gender of person(s) designing the company’s website

IT professionals 29 71 IT operations, technicians 17 83 ICT Managers 16 84 Software professionals % Females % Males Occupation

Conclusions (1)
Differences in M / F production aesthetics
Differences in M / F preference aesthetics

Conclusions (2)
Massive implications for e-marketing to M and F
Implications for recruitment of IT professionals

Final conclusions
Need to spread the word, even if it shatters cherished conceptions about optimal design....

Media coverage
80 US newspapers (Wall St journal; NY Times; Washington Post)
BBC, Times Higher Education, Western Mail, Director Magazine, E-Consultancy, New Media Age
20 weblogs

Research and consultancy
Bunnyfoot
Directski
Bounty

Bounty

Can we help you?
University of Glamorgan,
[email_address] [email_address]
0144348 3293

Website design - Gender preferences

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