There are numerous studies investigating the effect of these factors on the consumer responses, however, few particularly stress on the influence of gender and the properties that are likely to be perceived differently by males and females. The identification of differences in preference patterns and the design elements that are likely to be attracted or avoided by different genders is also studied by various researchers, (McElroy, 1954; Dittmar et al., 1996; Moss et al., 2003). In literature, studies investigating the effect of gender on consumer response focus on the behavioral responses that relate to the preferences and very few analyze the effect of gender on cognitive responses. There is a lack of studies arguing that different genders might provide different cognitive responses to the same product form. As Veryzer (1995) acknowledges, more research is needed to identify factors such as psychological factors, culture, socio-economic factors, visual organization principles, and gender that influence consumers’ responses to product designs.
Consumers with different genders go through different experiences that may affect their judgments and preferences for visual information (Yun et al. 2003, Eckman et al, 1994). The environment, time, culture, age, psychological and physiological differences may cause each of us to require different products and may interact with the same product in a different way, these differences in the context of consumption, the degree of satisfaction towards products may vary accordingly. Consequently, it is important for designers to investigate the possible perceptual differences between different genders, since the ways the consumers perceive the product form are the indicators of the consumer’s satisfaction toward that product.