They say that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus; owing to massive differences in their mannerisms. What appeals to one, does not appeal to the other. This holds true in the case of websites as well, where the female population prefers a site with better aesthetic sense. Thus, designs that are feminine, appeal to various cultures, sub-cultures and age-groups of women worldwide and ensure your website clicks with your female consumers.
In order to design a website that appeals to feminine sensibilities, you will need to get into the mind of your female target audience. Try and understand how their mind works, their interests, preferences, etc.
As a website designer, I have had to design websites keeping a female audience in mind, on more than one occasion. This has allowed me to arrive at certain conclusions regarding the kind of design that works for women.
Let’s take a look at certain tips that will help a website garner the attention of its female audience.
Different Typography:
To give a prominent feminine touch to your design, reach out for scripted or handwritten fonts. I suggest that you do not go overboard with these fonts and use them effectively in the titles, subtitles, headings or text boxes (to make certain information stand-out); and go for regular serf/sans-serif fonts for the body text. These two points will collectively make the overall content easy to read and keep the website attractive at the same time.
Charming colors and pretty patterns:
Women prefer softer shades when it comes to colors, so you can opt for pastel shades of blue, green, yellow and red to give the design a more feminine touch.
Also, be judicious in your use of color tones, as they can tell salmon pink from peach, and teal from turquoise. Also, you need keep the age factor in mind while using colors. For example, choose Bubblegum pink for a website meant for young girls and not deep mauve, this color should be used on websites meant for middle-aged women.
Apart from colors, patterns also make a lot of difference when you want to make the design appealing. Floral patterns have been a particular favorite with women across all cultures and traditions. You can thus, incorporate floral elements along with curl elements in your designs using various design software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, which contain many brushes with such patterns.
Instant connection using images:
When you are designing for your female target audience, beautify your website with the help of photos, images and graphic elements, which they can relate to. You can use images of babies, cute pets and other animals and flowers, to evoke an emotional response; however clichéd this tip might sound, take it from me, such pictures never fail to create an instant connection with women users.
Sometimes, in order to cater to a more specific group, such as business women, you can use photos of career women who have been successful in the past. Alternatively, you can use images of women who are in charge of their offices and handling a team.
Also, try and use images where the subject in the image faces the viewer to make the female users feel more connected, this can bring out exceptional results.
Make it Load Fast
Women are busy folk and therefore, they don’t have that much time to wait for the website to get loaded. They have other earthy things do and that means, you will have to make sure that your website is getting loaded fast. If you are not sure how much longer your website is taking to get loaded on difference devices, you can try some tools like PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom tool, GTmetrix etc.
Use the copy to connect:
Even though you may put together a magnificent design, you still need an effective copy to complement the designs. Women find it difficult to connect with a copy that seems cold, distant and detached. In this scenario, even your graphics – however wonderful they maybe, cannot do anything to retain their interest.
Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to your copy which can be done very easily. Just keep the overall tone casual and not too formal. Keep your sentences simple and do away with long, complex sentences. Also, make sure that you avoid a lot of technical jargon whenever and wherever possible; women folks get turned off, if the content is difficult for them to read.
You can never fail to impress your female target audience, if you manage to use these tips in your websites.
