When we’re in a given location (physical or virtual), we are aware of “what kind of people hang out here” — we may be aware consciously or unconsciously, but we *are* aware. If we’re at a location/website and we don’t see any sign of “my type of people” being there — it tends to discourage participation. That’s basic human tribal and interpersonal programming.

I’m self-aware enough to know that that when I come across a website/community where 100% of the identifiable contributors are men, I’ll think carefully before spending my time and energy in joining the conversation. And I don’t consider myself shy or inhibited around men. But fact is, if it looks like a 100% boys club — I’m more likely to pass on by and find another place that looks more gender-mixed.

All this is why it’s so important for leaders who do want to broad participation to be aware of the unspoken messages they’re sending in their choice of employees, interviewees, photos on websites, etc. The sad thing to me is that the host of that site (a designer by profession, trained in this stuff!) was unaware that all his interviewees/home page photos were of men, until it was pointed out to him. And gosh golly — turns out most of the email to the site is from men too! Gee, isn’t that a surprise.

(In terms of the broader issue of gender & design — I’d hypothesize that with ‘traditional’ product design having roots in manufacturing, and ‘modern UI design’ being rooted in technical/computer training — there’s a genesis for gender disparity starting from those roots — since historically proportionally fewer women than men have tended to specialize in manufacturing/hard product design or in technical disciplines.)

Adaptive Path has a good mix of both male and female designers. So the disparity isn’t so apparent here. But definitely when you look at conference lists and alleged experts, there are less women.

As Colette, said, men don’t seem to notice this. But if the lists were all women, they likely would.

I was thinking about these issues recently when at a web design/dev conference, and there was only one woman presenting (on accessibility, interestingly). Perhaps I’m stereotyping but I think that women on the whole tend to be more self deprecating, to speak up less, and to strive less for the spotlight. So with those factors it’s easier to find male experts (to interview/speak) than female.

Generally, I think gender informs our interests in design. The gender difference may be a testimony to that. I think that’s more likely due to other factors, but your psychologist friend might disagree.

As for my personal approach, I freelance, so it’s a break in routine for me, a way to work creatively. As a web designer, I like to see form and function working together, and I like to work with both sides of that equation.

I also blog about art and activism, so I’m scouring the world for resources on design constantly. Thank you for posting about this, I will share it!

At a conference recently I listened to a speaker on gender interaction in online discussions. Her study found men were more likely to speak up than women just to agree or disagree where as women chose their words more carefully. There were, of course, exceptions on both sides.

Based more on the fact that there were exceptions than that there were patterns I tend to think more gender differences can be attributed to socialization. In fact, I’m frequently that exception. I’m a women in web development who thinks of the graphic design element of the development process as her weakness.

I think my life experience is more of an influence on my interest in design than anything else. I enjoy the rational approach, the problem solving, and the knowledge that there is a way to know if I’ve gotten something right or wrong, even if there may be more than one right solution to a problem. As a kid I was involved in a creative problem solving competition and some days web design feels like a natural extension of building rubber band powered vehicles

Of course, design has a completely different mythos from programming, and the cultural archtype of a designer is very different from that of a socially-inept programmer geek. I’m not saying that this exact phenomenon carries across both fields. But it does seem to be true that gender affects one’s approach to and interests within a particular field.

I think the issue is that men often don’t realize that they’re only showing men. Most of them don’t want to exclude women, it just doesn’t click in their head that they’re not being inclusive. Every time I’ve brought it up to a guy who has done something like that, they’re surprised. They hadn’t looked at it that way at all.

I also receive more comments from men than from women, but I think that’s because there are more male bloggers in my field. Other than that, I don’t know.