Wednesday, February 28

Women & Men View Web Sites Differently

Check out the linked piece (click on the title of this post)that mentions some 2005 research out of Glamorgan University Business School in Wales that suggests "it's not just a Web site's subject or function that determines whether it will draw more men or women. The appearance of the site also might play a subtle role."

Highlights of the results:
• Male subjects tended to assign higher ratings to pages designed by men, and females preferred sites made by women.
• 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.

1 comment:

Boris said...

I groaned when I read this sentence in the article:

"Women seemed to like pages with more color in the background and typeface. Women also favored informal rather than posed pictures."

I think that statement holds true for all Web users. People want more color in the pages and action photos are more visually appealing. The idea of text-heavy Web sites (think the Wall Street Journal newspaper edition) isn’t appealing to anyone.