The moderating effect of gender on academic website impression

• We examine the moderating effect of gender on impression of academic websites.
• Men and women are influenced differently by presentation, navigation, and quality.
• We find presentation is more important for men, navigation more so for women.
• The model extends understanding of the gender role in academic website design.
• Implications exist for building academic websites mindful of gender preferences.

This study examines the moderating effect of gender differences on the relationship between website characteristics and the overall impression of two academic websites. Findings provide evidence that website quality characteristics of the website are more important to men and the website navigation characteristics are more important to women. Implications about building websites are relevant to both practitioners and academicians.