In respect to other forms of design, the field of web design is a relatively new one. However, many people—especially web designers—already have a feel for what kind of person the average web designer is. While web designers may differ significantly on personality factors, one this is readily apparent: most web designers are male.
To many, such a statement might be blindingly obvious. Nevertheless, statistics and demographics of the web design industry are scarce. Only recently have researchers undertaken the task of trying to understand who web designers are. And the results tend to match our intuitive feelings: the web design industry is male-dominated.
A study published in the Journal of Marketing Communications in 2005, “Attitudes towards product website design: A study of the effects of gender” showed that 83% of web developers were men (Simon and Peppas, 2005). Adding to this, in 2007 the blogger Jason Kottke published a collection of statistics on his website (http://kottke.org/07/02/gender-diversity-at-web-conferences), showing a undeniable discrepancy between the number of female speakers and male speakers at web conferences. The researcher Gloria Moss further added to our current collection of statistics when she performed a large series of interviews with designers in various industries. The results of all this research repeats again and again: there is a severe lack of female web designers.
Okay, so we’ve got a bunch of objective statistics, but what does this mean for the industry—and more importantly, what does this mean for web designers? Before this question can be answered, you need to have a firm grasp on the role of the principle of similarity in web design.
In short, the principle of similarity states that a given gender prefers designs produced by a member of the same gender. In psychology, the positive impact of similarity on attraction has been proved and reproved since the 1960s (Byrne, 1968; Goldman, 1980; Lydon, 1988; Klohnen, 2003). It is only recently that these findings have been applied to the field of web design.
One of the most important pieces of research coming out of this field is that aesthetics are personal, not universal. That is, the rules on which so many designers had relied on in the past (e.g., the golden ratio), do not apply to all types of web design. In fact, the only time such a rule of thumb improves the design of a website is when you can be certain that the visitors of the website all agree (implicitly) with the rule. In other words, if you want to make your website aesthetically pleasing, you need to know what aesthetically pleasing means in the first place. And in web design, aesthetically pleasing means matching the aesthetic preferences of the visitors.
Why is it important for a website to be aesthetically pleasing? Well, if you are a web designer, you likely already know the answer, though you may not be able to immediately express it in words. Here is the scientific answer: aesthetically pleasing means giving the visitor a feeling of similarity. In turn, this feeling of similarity leads to many positive outcomes for your website, including:
- Increased sales of products
- Heightened positive affect (good feelings) while browsing the site
- Enhanced evaluation of the site itself
- Greater attention to the content of the site
Now it’s time for a bit of logical inference. What can you conclude from the following facts?
- Women account for the majority of money spent via consumption.
- Women account for a small minority of web designers.
- Women prefer websites designed by women.
Rationally, one of the conclusions that can be made here is that there is a problematic discrepancy in the web design industry; websites that target women or are gender-neutral are likely to have a deficiency in sales conversion rates, readership, and loyalty, due to not being designed with women in mind.
The implication is that a change that renovates such sites to be more aesthetically pleasing to women would improve a website in terms of popularity, evaluations, and revenue. But with most web designers being male, such a change would be hard to undergo. Off the top of one’s head, there are two clear options:
- Force male web designers to become women (or replace them with women)
- Educate male web designers on the specifics of creating websites aesthetically pleasing to women.
If you are like me and prefer the second option, keep reading this blog for strategies that appeal to female visitors.
References:
Byrne, London, and Reeves (1968). The effects of physical attractiveness, sex, and attitude similarity on personal attraction. Journal of Personality, 36 (2).
Goldman, Rosenzweig, and Lutter (1980). Effect of similarity of ego identity status on interpersonal attraction. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9 (2).
Lydon, Jamieson, and Zanna. Interpersonal similarity and the social and intellectual dimensions of first impressions. Social Cognition 6 (4).
Klohnen, Luo (2003). Interpersonal Attraction and Personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (4).
Simon and Peppas (2005). Attitudes towards product website design: A study of the effects of gender. Journal of Marketing Communications 11 (2).
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