I looked back at a sight I tend to visit with regularity, MSN.com, and found that they incorporate both light and dark colors, tons of links yet lots of organization. I then looked at links like Maxim Magazine and Cosmopolitan Magazine which tend to cater to specific genders and found that each one has its own appeal. Maxim has darker colors, lots of pictures and tons of links. Cosmo on the other hand had bright colors, more organization (straight to the point) and fewer pictures. So this led me to the conclusion that perhaps businesses do well to design to the target audience. Yet those that target both genders can incorporate both design elements without taking a chance at losing its appeal to everyone.

Lets face the facts: Men and Women do communicate differently. (After all men are from Mars and women are from Venus right?) So doesn’t it make sense that we are attracted to different design elements, if in fact design is a method of communication? I read a blog from Molly E. Holzschlag that said:

“That women like circles and men prefer straight lines is no accident. If we look to known archetypes, the circle signifies the feminine and attributes considered to be feminine: curves, community and cooperative communication. The straight line signifies the male not only physically, but in terms of representing focus and linear thought and communication.”

So if this is true then how should websites be designed? Perhaps a happy medium between the two: circles, straight lines, many links but complete organization and a variety of colors will do the trick. I also think it has to appeal to the target audiences mind frame. By that I mean women and men comprehend and process things differently. I probably won’t surf a sight with tons of sports scores regardless of its colors and design elements because it doesn’t interest me.

So I guess overall I feel that maybe websites should be gender specific only if they target a specific gender and the rest should try to use elements that appeal to both. Ultimately I have to agree with the comment from 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.” Well I agree as long as we take into consideration the use of the words “might play a subtle role”.

Even though the concept of the post didn’t surprise me, I was intrigued by some of the details of the research, specifically that men and women give higher ratings to websites created by their respective genders. Many of my classmates have posted comments questioning how people can know which gender created the website. However, I think that their questions drive the point further. Women like the same sites other women do, and men like websites more suited to masculine tastes. This aspect of the research reminded me of when Auburn’s University Program Council was recreating its website. Our media tech director was a male at the time. I remember once he asked me what I thought about the website. I commented that it needed more color, and he preferred that it remained white with horizontal lines and lots of buttons. Ultimately, to my disappointment, the page remained boring white.

So I say, excellent job to the researchers at Glamorgan for pointing out even more differences in masculine and feminine tastes, and thanks to Tara for bringing this to us.

What is the answer to a more hermaphroditic layout? Perhaps vibrant colors with endless links or black-and-white with informal pictures. This is where the specific organization must become actively involved in researching their target audience. The research will provide answers to help in creating the most viewer friendly website.

There are many issues that can be debated within this study. For example, while searching for an internship I find myself in varying moods. Some days I will come across a site that jumps off the page at me and it is an annoyance. Then, find one with little or no bells and whistles on the opening page and immediately become curious as to why they didn’t try to catch my attention. This motivates me to investigate further into the companyand find out the reasoning behind this. Are they just that good? Do companies do this purposely? This motivational tactic is not necessarily gender specific but it works.

Instead of spending more time researching male vs. female preferences, there would be a greater advantage in researching various personality types and their preferences. Either way, there is much to be considered when creating a successful website. Thank you Tara for bringing this to our attention.

I , being a girl, like bright colors and text. (I agree that the new Auburn Website is too dark!) I wanted to test this theory on myself to see if the “style and design” of a website would influence my feelings toward it.

I recently watched car racing for the first time. Not awful, not my favorite, but I know a lot of people (mostly guys) who check Nascar.com to see driver standings, etc. I went to the website and there was so much crammed on the first page that I couldn’t even read it. Nothing jumped out at me. It was just a bunch of columns and boxes. It had dark colors and straight lines, like the study said a website a man would prefer would have.

I then went to the girliest website I could think of, Lilypulitzer.com, a women and girl’s clothing company. Right away it was colorful with hot pink writing and colorful pictures. It was clean, pretty and organized. Not too much just simple with one changing picture and easy to access pages.

After seeing the two websites, the study did indeed apply to me. I liked the website that had colorful pictures and text with unposed pictures rather than the nascar website.

Although, Erin M. made a great point. The Glamorgan Study never mentioned whether or not the content on the websites studied was consistent.

Would I like nascar better if the website was hot pink with make-up ads, similiarly would a guy like Lily Pulitzer clothes if the website had straight lines, black text and beer ads?

Also a female nascar nut who likes to dress comfortably would probably hate the clothing website and love the nascar one.

More research would have to be done to find out if the content of a website isn’t what truly drives someone to like it or not.

As far as having male and female versions of a website, I think it depends on the target audience of each specific website.

Out of the ten websites I visited, 80% seemed to favor a more masculine approach, with the straight, horizontal lines and stationary, solid objects. These were Williams College, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, University of Washington and Duke.

Only two percent favored the feminine approach, with more color, attractive typeface and informal pictures. These were Smith College and Cornell University. And in case you didn’t know, Smith is a women’s college. So does that even count?

Obviously, a lot more research needs to be done to really determine if the U.S. favors masculine or feminine websites. But even with this small sample it’s clear that most of the Ivy League schools favor masculinity in their websites. Is this because their target audience is men, or simply because a man created the site? Or maybe they are trying to recruit more male applicants? Very interesting.

During my research to find public relations firms for my potential internship and possibly my first job, I was attracted to different things on different websites. I liked the color and creativity of the sites which is typical of women. I also liked the clean lines and simplicity of the websites which is typically male. It wasn’t strictly female websites or strictly male sites I like but rather a combination of both.

Website designers need always to keep in mind their audience when designing their sites. Poor design can turn a potential employee, client, or simple browser away within seconds. This goes back to the fundamental rule of public relations and marketing which is, know your audience. It is necessary for typically male companies to add mostly male components, however, they should also add female components to draw in female browsers. The same should be done for typically female companies.

When website designers come up with a balance for male and female website designs, they could attract potentially double their viewing status. It makes sense that websites such as ESPN or the Maxim magazine website have more male design qualities and websites such as iVillage and Bluefly (a shopping website) have more female design qualities. It would do those websites good, however, if they added components of the opposite sexes liking.

What I find the most interesting about the findings is what the information says about the personalities of men and women. I have not studied gender differences in school so I do not know the theories that are out there. However, I relate the difference in website preferences to the differences I have with my friends on video games. My best guy friends love fancy new video games. When I head over to their houses, they are playing the games through the internet on projector sized screens to get the ultimate effect. I, on the other hand, and most of my female friends, enjoy playing the Super Nintendo games. These video games have mediocre graphics but, are direct and to the point.

This article also reminded me of a project I did this summer at my internship. I and my fellow intern, whom is also a girl, were in charge of analyzing various clients’ websites and giving suggestions on how they could improve their sites for their audiences. Looking back, I wonder whether our opinions were biased as we did not represent the opinions of the male gender. Furthermore, there was one website that I really disliked. Its color theme was deep red with white text and it contained a lot of long paragraphs. Although the information states that women tend to like more color, I feel that maybe the statement that men prefer darker tones and straight lines was more accurate in this situation. I remember looking at this website for hours on end thinking, what is the exact reason that I just do not like this red background? Additionally, as a woman, I feel that I fall perfectly into the stereotype of wanting things to be brief concise, and my time on the site to be limited. As I ended up writing in my analysis, the long paragraphs bothered me. I thought that the information should be bulleted and easy to read so that the website surfer could get what they needed and get out.

Their preference, along with our girlie preferences may also be led by principles of psychology, not just rods and cones. Women are notorious gossips/nesters/emotional. Because of our “need” for comfort and stories, websites like iVillage (ivillage.com) give women Cosmo-esque articles about issues females find appealing. This is a definite female website.

Josh commented on his enjoyment of typically male websites. His blog names the Chicago Cubs website as one of his most viewed. I looked at the site, and it follows what the article claims to be the male model: only two major colors, bold horizontal lines and moving links…plus nifty gadgets to track scores and game playback.

I see all this, and I start to wonder- Are we forgetting content? The AP piece quoted Gloria Moss as saying there needs to be more research on whether to tailor websites to target women and men. More than aesthetics need to be considered…the Glamorgan study said that male and female students designed the websites that were the test group, but did not state if the content was the same on each site. If the content was not consistent, it would be easy to see why women picked female sited and guys the male ones.

The comparison of iVillage to ESPN also follows this line of reasoning. If I were a female sports nut, I would value the sports website more than some frilly Betty Homemaker site (not to be sexist). Advertisers and marketers have spent years aligning products to target audiences. The maleness/femaleness of a website can ultimately be found in the page’s advertising. If you look at ESPN, you will see banners for luxury cars, cell phones and sports equipment. iVillage boasts ads for low-fat breakfast bars, diaper ointment and the like.

It does confuse me that research shows that women tend to like to look at webpages made by women and men like to look at webpages made by men. How do I know who made the website? But at the same time, it does make sense that a woman would know what other women want to see and a man would know what men like to see on a website.

When I had to do research on the new Dove Real Beauty Campaign I was extremely caught up in my research because I loved the website. The colors are soft blue and pink. The website was easy to navigate and it was geared to attract women. I don’t think my guy friends would have too much fun surfing through the Dove website, at least not as much as I did. At the same time, I really don’t pay that much attention to a website unless it is user-friendly and I have fun on the website. If a website has too much information and looks cluttered I am bothered by it because I don’t know where to start reading. I don’t know who designed the Dove website but they surely got my attention.

So I think if a company is targeting women/men they should appeal to what women/men want in a website in order to capture their audience and keep them coming back to visit. If the company has a combined target audience then I guess they make it work for both parties.

After reading this article, the first thing that came to my mind is the foreign language class I’ve taken. In the Spanish language nouns are either masculine or feminine… there is no in between. Similarly, I think that because men and women are different both psychologically and physically, most products, services and even websites are directed toward either men or women with little in between.

In Marketing Strategy, I learned that the goal of advertising is identifying and communicating with a specific target audience. It would be unreasonable to assume that any one strategy, or website, is going to reach and affect every single person in that market. Instead the goal is to reach the target audience, not necessarily the “most” audience.

For example, the outdoorchannel.com doesn’t really have a need for a women’s version of their web page because the channel and website’s goal is to reach the most outdoorsmen. Similarly, brides.com doesn’t need a men’s version of their website because it caters to brides… women.

I think that as long as the web site is able to communicate with and appeals to the largest amount of it’s target audience, then the goal has been realized.

Furthermore, I think there should be more research done on the gender favoring the same gender’s designed website. For instance, according to the study, as a female I should favor websites designed by women, but what if a homosexual man designed a website, would I not be prone to favor that website too?