The World Wide Web doubles in size roughly every 2-3 months and dramatic claims are made about the effectiveness of Web-based commercial efforts. The centrality of non-price mechanisms of differentiation to the perception, enjoyment and ease of use felt using websites is acknowledged but the only statistically rigorous studies of factors such as form and content have been conducted within a universalist paradigm of aesthetics. This paper reports on an interactionist approach to web aesthetics involving an analysis of 60 maleand female-produced websites. The analysis reveals statistically significant differences between the male-and female-produced websites on 13 out of the 23 factors analysed. These differences span issues of navigation as well as linguistic and visual content. The paper argues that the appeal of websites can be maximised if they mirror the needs and interests of their target populations and that websites targeted at male or female dominated markets need to reflect the aesthetic diversity found in the male-and femaleproduced websites analysed here. It also presents information on the demographics of the IT profession, showing that there is a potential imbalance between the percentage of women involved online and those involved in the IT profession. This suggests that the male domination of the IT profession could be a barrier to the effective mirroring of female Website preferences.

Gloria Moss is a Director of Product Psychology, a consultancy specialising in tailoring consumer products and services to specific market segments. Formerly Training Manager (UK) with Eurotunnel, and before that Site Training Manager with Courtaulds at Britain's largest manufacturing site, she has been an Associate Lecturer for many years with the OpenUniversity Business School. Andrew M. Colman is Professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester. His research focuses mainly on decision making, and he has also investigated aesthetic preferences and consumer preferences for services. His contribution to this article was facilitated by study leave granted by the University of Leicester. Choices and Preferences 2 ABSTRACTGender differences in consumer choices and preferences were explored in two quasiexperiments. In Experiment I, business cards were collected from 144 men and 83 women attending a Young Designers exhibition. The business cards of male designers were found to be of standard size and printed on white card significantly more often than the cards of female designers. In Experiment II, 35 female and 30 male respondents indicated which of four representative Christmas cards they preferred. A significant tendency was found for respondents to choose cards designed by members of their own sex. These findings are discussed in relation to earlier research into gender differences, and implications for design and brand management are outlined. THE CUSTOMER'S POINT OF VIEWA classic marketing textbook, 1 written almost fifty years ago, suggested that successful marketing involves seeing the business from the customer's point of view, and in today's commercial environment the same could be said with equal force about successful brand management. One possible route into the customer's mind, often recommended in the literature, is the study of market segmentation variables. They provide a method of identifying subgroups of consumers who are likely to respond in a relatively homogeneous way to products/services or brands. 2 Gender is almost invariably cited as an important segmentation variable, but in fact relatively little research had been carried out until recently to establish whether men's and women's responses to consumer products and brands differ systematically. Some publications have discussed informally techniques of marketing specifically to women, 3 but gender differences have surprisingly seldom been addressed in relation to consumer or brand preferences in the published research literature.In particular, very little research has been devoted to gender differences in design preferences. Aside from some earlier work by the first author of this article, 4 researchers have failed to examine whether, and if so how, the design preferences of men and women --their evaluative responses to the appearance of products or associated images --may differ. In this Choices and Preferences 3article we hope to make a contribution towards filling this gap in the research literature by reporting the results of two n...

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PurposeThis paper aims to give a wider understanding of what customers really want from first and subsequent visits to mainstream city centre nightclubs and bars by examining customer attitudes to various aspects of the services arena and service offerings provided by such venues.Design/methodology/approachPurposive sampling was used to establish two focus groups within the industry's main target market age group. This qualitative data were analysed from a grounded theory approach in order to identify the emerging themes that were then tested by quantitative data gathered by means of a questionnaire in phase 2 of the research. These data were then subjected to a frequency analysis in SPSS in order to identify those elements that were most preferred by the majority of respondents.FindingsFindings point to the relative importance of various elements of the servicescape in influencing customer decisions to enter a venue for the first time, and also to the relative importance of factors which prompt subsequent visits to a venue.Practical implicationsIn such a saturated and highly competitive marketplace these findings can assist mainstream venues within the late night economy to improve their competitive position by understanding and then providing what customers really want.Originality/valueAlthough there is much services marketing literature on the relevance of the servicescape and the importance of service quality, this paper attempts to ascertain which factors are truly key in customer decision‐making, and in which order each element of the service is rated by the industry's key target market.