Men are from Mars...

I went to a seminar today which discussed the difference between men and women.

Now I know there are some fairly obvious differences, but this particular presentation was about website preferences.

Before seeing the presentation I considered I might just be told that men prefer porn and women prefer shopping (and please don't rant about my stereotyping).

Actually the presentation was done by folk from Glamorgan University who had done research about what kind of websites the two sexes design and build and, as a follow up, learning about which website designs the sexes prefer.

Allow me to summarise:

Men build sites that have few colours, lots of straight lines, lots of positive, assertive, technical copy and a design that is very traditional.

Women build sites with lots of colour, few straight lines, friendly, cosy copy and a design that is likely to differ from website design norms.

And men prefer sites designed by men, women prefer sites designed by women.

So the answer, when you're trying to please men and women with your website, is to have it designed by men and women.