Kath Straub and Dr. Eric Schaffer about the studies form Moss, Gunn and Kubacki on the effect of designer gender on Web site design:
“If you have been anywhere near the popular media in the last few weeks, you have heard about of the studies by Moss, Gunn and Kubacki (in press, 2005). This is the University of Glamorgan trio that has garnered attention for having “proved” that what catches men’s eyes on the Internet is different from what catches women’s eyes. Shocked? Didn’t think so.
Actually, to be fair to the authors, the media (in search of a sound byte) has reported both more and less than what the research really says. What Moss and colleagues have really reported is that:
- most of the Web sites they examined are designed by men
- most Web sites designed by men reflect a male aesthetic
- men’s ratings for sites with a male aesthetic are higher than women’s ratings for the same sites
Still waiting for the shocking part, aren’t you?
Actually, the research is not quite as simplistic as that. Earlier research by members of this team demonstrated that male and female graphic and product design preferences tend to be distinguishable (Moss, 1999; Moss and Coleman, 2001.) Further, they demonstrated that designers tend to prefer designs by same-gender designers.
Would the same thing, they wondered, hold for Web sites? After all, Moss and colleagues observed, males comprise the majority of industry leaders and IT workers today. Most Web sites are designed by males. Yet there are many industries where women are (e.g., cosmetics) or are becoming (e.g., higher education in the UK) the majority consumer group.
Do Web sites have genders? And, if they do, what implications would this have for the effectiveness of the brands?”
Internetverweis
Much ado about sex and Web sites… or why it’s still important to know who your users are
