I have grouped some of the most intriguing aspects I learned about the way women think in this post. They all are about information and the focus to her objectives and I think they should change many internet products and services.

Again Marti Barletta:

“How can you possibly grasp the big picture without a detailed knowledge of the specifics?”

Women look for detailed information, but not for all data at once, and they look for other details than men would. Read about this items in the following:

• the start of the search
• the perfect answer
• trust

The start of the search

Internet search works best if you know precisely what you need, because then you can enter specific search terms. This approach has some caveats:

• Mostly we do not precisely know what we want when we start searching. Women can spend ages to look up the latest jeans trend for the next summer using a search engine. The according Google list looks like optimized by a lot of search engine marketers.
• If women know that “boyfriend jeans” are stylish, they will find well known brands and celebrities wearing them right away. It will take a long time to understand which new one fits.

Today’s search engines are of limited use in this case. Many new concepts like bookmarks, sharing platforms or lenses are tested with no one having clearly succeeded yet. A more female approach would be to offer other keywords, not similar ones, or to recommend other websites than can help quicker.

New concepts can be very appealing for women. For instance www.etsy.com or www.dawande.de offer to search by color.

The perfect answer

Men often think, they analyze every single detail to come to the appropriate solution. In fact they are often satisfied with one solution to their problem, even when there might be a better one.

Women try to verify all requirements they have and decide only when they have assessed all information sources. Typically women look for the perfect answer and rather do not buy instead of buying an inferior solution. This includes reaching a consensus on an issue before making a decision.

Women also look for different information than men do. They are less interested in technical issues but more in practical use and aesthetics. We know women using smart phones without internet connectivity – the smart phones offer a full keyboard to type SMSs and they look good. This should have an impact on product selectors.

An interesting real-time selector is the virtual makeover of www.marykay.com.

Trust

For financial transactions  of a certain size women use the internet far less than men do. This is astonishing; only 5.4 million women remain unconcerned in financial matters in Germany .

Women want help in financial matters as out study with ImmobilienScout24 shows . Silverstein writes: “They want advisors and services that recognize women’s need for short-term simplicity and long-term stability” . But in finance, health care and other areas trust in those advisors is shrinking . Women trust their friends, and value their opinion a lot.

Companies must gain trust in order to compete with women’s new information sources. Digital media companies rarely invest in building trust. They could

• inform more proactively and more honestly instead of focusing purely on price
• offer consulting services
• focus on serving the customer instead of selling

Many of the recommendation services currently offered in the internet are not designed to build trust, generate enough traffic for a significant number of recommendations or take too much time. Certificates are often not well known.

Positive examples can be found when arranging holidays for instance at www.tripadvisor.co.uk or www.holidaycheck.de.

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