Study: Web site's appearance matters

[Christopher]

From CNN:

(AP) -- It's no secret that men and women tend to spend their time on the Internet quite differently.

But British researchers suggest 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.

In a recent study at Glamorgan University Business School in Wales, test subjects rated the personal Web pages of 60 people for usability and aesthetics.

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.

Gloria Moss, a Glamorgan research fellow, said the project should be instructive for organizations that aim for wide audiences. The research -- which was repeated in France and Poland to rule out British cultural bias -- is being published in European journals on consumer behavior and marketing.

So should Web sites consider having two faces, one for male users and another for female visitors? Moss said more research is needed.

"At the very least," she said, "we think there ought to be a combination of aesthetics."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

So, what do you think is a favorable site design? What colors appeal to you? What styles?

[Leon]

I make websites as a hobby. Loosely following the advice of Valerie Casey, who once had a tutorial on her site, I always think long and hard about the mood, the atmosphere, the feelings I want to convey, because web design is always partly about an artistic REpresentation of the content. I take a lot of time to try to mentally amalgamate the site and its visual deployment, because coolness exists only when it serves the site's purpose.

I also look for these things in other websites - stylish, low-key, not an ounce wasted on fleeting technology just because someone wants to show-off, functional as the site's purpose demands OR conjures the required emotion.

Just so I'm not off-topic: I think a lot of sites are masculine because they want to project a certain image (let's say, trustworthiness, authority).

The only favorite site I can think of now is - you'll need the wayback machine for this - Scandinavian Airlines (scandinavian.net) circa 2000. They had the most elegant thing on the face of the internet, and it flows so well from the corporate image they want to convey.

Just for fun, here's a couple of projects I've done for myself over the years.

1998

2005

Edited August 12, 2005 by Leon

[atrain]

i like text. plain text at a choice. i'm a simple man whose eyes get sore after 10-15+ hours of pc use a day.