A reader of my How to Build a Super Sticky Homepage IMediaConnection InFocus article emailed me some excellent questions which I paraphrase here:- "Why are so many pages in our analysis male oriented?"
- "What is NextStage's criteria for male v female oriented pages?"
This brings us into the early 00s. Many design firms, marketing firms, etc., and especially the larger ones, had women working for them guiding the entire design-to-publication process. Add to that that many of these firms either hired employees or consultants with some background in marketing psychology or similar disciplines. Marketing, urban and retail anthropology started being applied regarding how the different genders shop and it started showing up on the sites.
This brings us to the present. Now -- and for reasons I haven't completely fathomed yet -- the mishmash is on again. I have interviewed some of our client companies, though, and the results are interesting. For example, one company's web designer is a happily married fellow who creates pages well designed for women (not actually the company's market). Talking with him, I learned that his principle design teachers had all been women. Okay, 'nuff said on that one.
Another company had pages which were slightly male to heavily male oriented, yet a woman was "responsible for design and implementation" of the entire site (note the quotes). It turned out the slightly male pages were due to being given design specifications written by the CEO, a male who had final approval of the site. The heavily male pages were done when her immediate supervisor, an old school male, had literally stayed in her office while she worked and changed everything she did before the page got published.
Why were the pages in my InFocus article male oriented? I'm guessing because none of the companies mentioned in that article are NextStage clients. I'll offer any and all of the reasons listed above, plus more I haven't even thought of, as reasonable explanations.
Unreasonable explanations, of course, come under consulting and will cost you more.
More on this subject in my next post...
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