Inside Design Research: A presentation about Gender & Design

Designers are essentially involved in the cultural production of gender images and representations by creating physical as well as immaterial artifacts like products, services and digital interfaces. Their interfaces can be regarded as materialization or visualization of their more or less explicit attitudes towards the focused user group and context. In this case, there are also expressions of their assumptions about masculinity and femininity.
Bemoaning a design practice which currently addresses the topic of gender mostly in a stereotypical way, I aim at the development of a ‘gender theory of design’ or a ‘design theory of gender’ which sensitizes designers and design researchers for the gender dimension in their work.
In this talk, I would like to present my current state of research. Asking how gender is culturally produced by design, I give an insight in my current state of theoretical expertise and show an example to demonstrate the impact of interface design on gender performances.