Symmetry and aesthetics in website design: It’s a man’s business

In recent years the aesthetic appearance of user-interfaces has become a topic of increasing interest in the field of human–computer interaction (HCI). At the same time, it is well known that there are gender-specific effects in HCI. The present study investigates the effect of web page symmetry by taking gender differences into account. A total of 60 people (30 male, 30 female) participated in a laboratory experiment, where 20 website startpages had to be rated regarding symmetry, intuitive beauty, classical and expressive aesthetics. Results show that vertical symmetry is an important factor in aesthetic website design. It has an impact on intuitive straightforward beauty appraisals and on classical and expressive aesthetics judgments. Asymmetrically designed web pages were considered to be less beautiful and achieved lower scores on the classical and expressive dimensions. Moreover, the study indicates that the symmetry effect only occurs among male participants: only men react unfavorably to asymmetrically designed websites, whereas women’s judgments are not influenced by symmetry. These findings should be taken into consideration by website designers, especially when they aim to design for target audience consisting of a majority of a certain gender.