Designing Digital Products for Women: Science, Context & Perception
Have you ever been asked to design a product that specifically appeals to women? How about “working women” or “mothers.” Well, as Director of Production at Fantasy Interactive, a boutique design agency in San Francisco, I can tell you this is a common request from clients the world over. But what does “designing for women” actually mean?
I’ve heard everything from “Make it red, if it’s red, women will buy it,” to “We’re using photos of babies and dogs because women like babies and dogs,” to “Women want softer interfaces with round, organic shapes.” While some of these examples do resonate (put a puppy on it and I’m sure to take a second look), others simply don’t jive with my own preferences and experiences.
So I started to investigate some big questions that directly affect the kinds of products my teams and my clients are putting into the world for women to use. First, are we confusing aesthetics historically categorized as feminine with what women actually like? Second, how should we approach designing for women? And last, what can we do to better answer our clients’ and our users’ needs?
The best part about asking all of these questions was that I genuinely didn’t know the answers — even though I myself am a woman. Maybe I am more likely to buy a red phone with pictures of babies on the home screen and maybe my male colleagues are more likely to buy a blue phone with a Lamborghini as the screen saver. But I have my doubts. And as a woman in a male-dominated field, who is often asked to speak on behalf of all women, I want to make sure that I’m helping to design products that broadly appeal to female audiences, not just to my own atheistic preferences.
In this part of a three part series, we’ll tackle question number one: Are we, as designers, confusing aesthetics historically categorized as feminine with what women actually like? (i.e., we might call an object feminine because of its shape or color, but do those attributes align with what women actually prefer?)
Here are just a few things I dug up in my research. While young women (i.e., children) do prefer pink and purple — adult women like blue (as do adult men). Women don’t have a preference for symmetrical or asymmetrical website designs (though men prefer symmetry), and both genders prefer curves to hard angles (or straight lines, for that matter).
Color
When it comes to color, western women and men share a preference for cool colors (blue, green, cyan) with a clear preference for blue. The same audience routinely does not prefer warmer colors (red, orange, yellow) with yellow consistently falling at the bottom of preferred color lists. So when we design a pastel yellow product because we want to attract more female users, are we over-indexing on a stereotype that women like “softer” colors? The short answer is yes. Does this mean we should avoid making pastel yellow products altogether? No. We should just acknowledge that while yellow could be the best color for your app or web interface, the color itself won’t mean that women are more attracted to your product than men.
Curves
Similarly, curved designs, which are often talked about as “feminine,” are equally preferred by both genders. So whether or not we think of angularity or curvature as masculine or feminine, empirically, men and women like curves the same. The takeaway here is that you can still describe a curvy interface as “feminine looking” if you want to, but curved interfaces will appeal equally to women and men.
Symmetry
And how about symmetry? Maybe this one is less inherently gendered. But in a 2014 study, researchers found that the symmetry of websites had no influence on whether or not women judged a site to be more or less attractive, whereas men clearly had a preference for symmetrical sites. So maybe if you’re asked to design for a male audience, keep your interface symmetrical. But if you’re trying to appeal to women, symmetry won’t matter.
Imagery
Last, and perhaps least satisfying — what kind of imagery do women prefer? I couldn’t tell you. There are some studies that tell us how men and women examine imagery (women tend to spend more time looking at faces, whereas men tend to scan the entirety of an image repeatedly) and research on whether or not women prefer advertisements with images of people or solid color backgrounds (women preferred solid colors). But there isn’t enough scientific research on what images women like for us to utilize specific types of imagery in our products to directly appeal to them.
Context, Perception and Science
So what does all this tell us? We’re more similar than we are different when it comes to design preferences. It also…kind of doesn’t tell us much. Here’s why:
The context of design matters. So even though I may prefer a blue screen saver (because everyone generally prefers blue), I’m not likely to buy a blue carpet over a neutral one. While I may not have a distinct preference for asymmetrical vs. symmetrical designs, I know I don’t like asymmetrical clothing. And I may generally like curves, but I wouldn’t say I dislike Mondrian. Point being: the context of aesthetics can influence our preferences.
We also know that women and men can be “turned off” by a product if they feel it hasn’t been designed for them. Whether or not product designers mean to alienate female audiences, women’s perception of who the product has been designed for can be a major factor in adoption. So perception matters, not just context.
In order to effectively design for women, we need to acknowledge the science behind women’s likes and dislikes, the context in which they are using our products and how our designs may be perceived. Why? Because understanding these three pieces that contribute to our preferences can help us resist stereotypes and come up with appropriate design decisions for our intended audience.
In the second part of this series, we’ll look at how we can leverage what we know about science, context and perception to create a design approach that will result in better products for women.
