Pretty or practical? The role of gender stereotypes in shaping design concepts

This study investigates how gender alignment between a designer and a user persona and the persona’s conformity to gender stereotypes shape early-stage design concept characteristics. While past research has examined gender and stereotype bias in final design outcomes, less attention has been paid to how these biases emerge during the initial design stages and shape early-stage design characteristics, such as aesthetics and functionality. To address this, we conducted a factorial design study with 50 expert and quasi-expert designers, paired with personas under different gender-alignment and gender-conformity conditions. Guided by Gender Schema Theory, we employed a summative content analysis and a linear regression model to investigate how gender alignment and gender stereotypes predict early-stage design concept characteristics. The results show that women designers produced concepts that emphasized more functionality and less affective considerations when designing for girl personas; designers produced concepts that emphasized durability and longevity more when designing for masculine personas, and more observed when men designers worked with masculine-boy personas. Interestingly, women designing for non-conforming boy personas designed concepts with more emotional and experiential considerations linked with self-expression and confidence. Masculine-boy and feminine-girl personas appeared to prompt more overt gendered embellishments compared to the gender-non-conforming personas. This study highlights how gender alignment and gender conformity influence the characteristics of early-stage design concepts. This work calls for a reflective and critical approach to persona development and use in early stages of design.