I’m not one for making a big thing of my gender, but I understand that some people would prefer to work with a woman when it comes to designing a website. Everyone has their own reasons for who they choose to work with, and sometimes it makes sense to search for someone who is female, male, or even non-binary.
Some people tell me they’re looking for a female web designer because they want someone who understands their business a little more intuitively. Others have had negative experiences when working with men who talked down to them and even tried to explain their own business to them. I’ve been in my share of those meetings.
Whatever the reason, I know there are people who found my website by searching for a female web designer because I have the Google Search statistics to prove it:
Generally speaking, gender doesn’t play a huge role in how good a web designer or developer is at their job. Being male or female might change a person’s attitude towards a particular subject matter, but I’ve designed plenty of high-performing websites for things I had no interest in beforehand, including hair loss solutions for men.
It can make sense to search for someone who inherently understands your audience. Any decent web designer should be willing to spend time getting up to speed too, however. If your designer is just making assumptions about who you are and what your customers’ problems are based on their own experiences, you could be alienating your audience with one narrow perspective.
Being good at your job and being right for a project are two different things.
At the end of the day, you’re the expert on your business. If you know you want a woman to look after your website, go for it. You’re also allowed to pick someone because you get along with them well, which can actually make it easier to get the work done at the end of the day. Similarly, it’s important to know your values and look for someone who shares those values too, or understands them at least.
These days I tend to pass on freelance work when I know I can recommend someone who is better suited to the job, which benefits everyone in the long run. For example, if you’re creating something for a community I’m not part of, I would much rather refer you to someone who is part of that community if I can.
If you’re hoping to work with more female designers and developers, the good news is there are a lot more women making websites these days than there used to be.
When I got my first real job designing websites back in 2010, I wasn’t just the only female web designer, I was the only woman in the whole company. Women were gradually hired for other roles, but it was just me an a bunch of dudes on the team developing websites for a long time. Over the next seven years, there were at least 11 male web designers who came and went and only one female graduate who was there briefly. I’d blame the company if it hadn’t been exactly the same at the tech events I attended at the time, or on the team pages for most web design agencies I looked at.
Thankfully these days there are a few meet-ups and groups for women who code, women in design, and a lot more companies are working to make the tech industry more welcoming to women. Companies such as InnovateHer are doing a great job getting girls ready to work in tech too.
Truth be told, I tend to sit in a grey area when it comes to my gender. There are definitely benefits to hiring a female web designer if they’re the right person for the job, but gender shouldn’t be the only thing you consider when you’re looking. Experience is key and design style is important, as well as professionalism, which are things you can assess when you talk to a designer in your initial conversations.
So, let’s talk.