Research: Web Site’s Appearance Matters - By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
Not surprisingly, male subjects tended to assign higher ratings to pages designed by men, and females preferred sites made by women. But the researchers said they gleaned important tidbits by looking more closely at the ratings.
Women seemed to like pages with more color in the background and typeface. Women also favored informal rather than posed pictures.
Men responded better to dark colors and straight, horizontal lines across a page. They also were more pleased by a three-dimensional look and images of “self-propelling” rather than stationary objects.
With those standards in mind, the researchers checked out the Web sites for 32 British universities and determined that 94 percent had a “masculine orientation.” Two percent showed a female-favored arrangement.
And the interesting question:
So should Web sites consider having two faces, one for male users and another for female visitors? Moss said more research is needed.
12 Comments
No, that’s dumb. Just because you like the way a site looks over another one doesn’t mean you won’t use it. I don’t think.
Me either. I go for the content and easy usability. I like it if it’s clean and easy to navigate.
I didn’t know females used computers.
Useability (which includes how the site looks, how intuitive it is to navigate, etc.) is a huge piece of web design, especially for a commercial site. (Just ask Google).
The point this article was making is that there seem to be general differences that have been observed between the sexes in their perception of what contributes to a sites appeal or useability.
As a web designer it was interesting to me, and it’s an important thing to take note of even for personal sites like blogs, if you want to make it easier for your readers. In most of the design of my theme (including color choices, etc.) I tried to make it as easy to read as possible. I’d like to trim it down a little bit (the sidebar stuff and the tag cloud) to really improve it more, but I don’t have much time for that right now.
Those are the little tv thingies with keyboards that you can order your designer jeans and get them faster than catalogs, right? Well, of course we use them. And we chat with friends on them, too. Can they do other stuff, too?
my blog is all balls.
This is an interesting little study. I know for myself there are definitely sites that I won’t bother looking at because the design bugs me.I wonder what the gender orientation is for most retail web sites?
oops that last post was me.
jared,
you are a web designer? that’s cool. cause i want to get a web page designed. how much do you charge?
I know, I know….
I won’t charge you guys anything, partially because I wouldn’t anyway, but also because then I would feel more guilty about it taking so long.
Of course, I wouldn’t object to a small cut once the profits start rolling in…
Your in!