There’s a lot of discussion bouncing around the web design blogosphere about the number of women in web design, the number of women on web design panels and women in technical careers in general. Always good to read intelligent people discussing interesting, important topics. I would especially recommend Zeldman’s post: Women In Web Design and the comments to that post.
One comment that hit home was the first one, by a woman web designer, noting that 90% of her clients are women. I find that also true of my clientele. Does it matter that I’m a woman web designer (as someone else asked)? Well, I don’t think that I create ‘feminine’ sites that are somehow different from those created my male web designers, but I think it does matter in how I communicate with my clients.
We live in a society that still treats women and men differently. I have also noticed that male clients will pay attention to the other man in the room and never even look at me, even though I’m the web designer not the other man. Same thing happened to me as a woman engineer. As a engineer who minored in women’s studies, sometimes I feel like I’m not doing enough to change the status quo. Other times, I’m just tired of dealing with men who demand that I prove myself again and again and would rather go find some women clients who will actually listen to me and get on with the project.
That said, I’ve also worked with men who were great. I really don’t think it should matter if my clients are men or women and I try to work that way.
Oh, and I took the Web Designer Survey (if you’re a web designer, you should, too) from A List Apart. So here’s my badge showing I completed it and my answers will help us learn more about who web designers are:
