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Gender-Inclusive Design: Sense of Belonging and Bias in Web Interfaces

Authors:

Danaë Metaxa-Kakavouli,

James A. Landay,

Jeff HancockAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Paper No.: 614, Pages 1 - 6

https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174188

Published: 21 April 2018 Publication History

Abstract

We interact with dozens of web interfaces on a daily basis, making inclusive web design practices more important than ever. This paper investigates the impacts of web interface design on ambient belonging, or the sense of belonging to a community or culture. Our experiment deployed two content-identical webpages for an introductory computer science course, differing only in aesthetic features such that one was perceived as masculine while the other was gender-neutral. Our results confirm that young women exposed to the masculine page are negatively affected, reporting significantly less ambient belonging, interest in the course and in studying computer science broadly. They also experience significantly more concern about others' perception of their gender relative to young women exposed to the neutral page, while no similar effect is seen in young men. These results suggest that gender biases can be triggered by web design, highlighting the need for inclusive user interface design for the web.

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Cited By

O’Brien LKanij TGrundy J(2025)Assessing gender bias in the software used in computer science and software engineering educationJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2024.112225219:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112225
Mallinger KBaeza-Yates R(2024)Responsible AI in Farming: A Multi-Criteria Framework for Sustainable Technology DesignApplied Sciences10.3390/app1401043714:1(437)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app14010437
Ariga TMashimo TYoshida T(2024)Gender-Inclusive Materials to Learn Programming through Data Visualization2024 12th International Conference on Information and Education Technology (ICIET)10.1109/ICIET60671.2024.10542802(477-481)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIET60671.2024.10542802
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Index Terms

Gender-Inclusive Design: Sense of Belonging and Bias in Web Interfaces
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2018

8489 pages

ISBN:9781450356206

DOI:10.1145/3173574

General Chairs:
Regan Mandryk
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
,
Mark Hancock
University of Waterloo, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Mark Perry
Brunel University London, UK
,
Anna Cox
University College London, UK

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Published: 21 April 2018

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CHI '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 666 of 2,590 submissions, 26%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

O’Brien LKanij TGrundy J(2025)Assessing gender bias in the software used in computer science and software engineering educationJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2024.112225219:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112225
Mallinger KBaeza-Yates R(2024)Responsible AI in Farming: A Multi-Criteria Framework for Sustainable Technology DesignApplied Sciences10.3390/app1401043714:1(437)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app14010437
Ariga TMashimo TYoshida T(2024)Gender-Inclusive Materials to Learn Programming through Data Visualization2024 12th International Conference on Information and Education Technology (ICIET)10.1109/ICIET60671.2024.10542802(477-481)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIET60671.2024.10542802
Díaz POnorati TAedo I(2024)Using Active Learning and Critical Thinking to Identify and Apply Ethical Values in Engineering Education2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578610(1-10)Online publication date: 8-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578610
Jones BZhu XEllis MAmbarkutuk ZFenerci H(2024)Connections between students’ perceptions of the motivational climate in a course and their motivational beliefs and academic and career goalsEuropean Journal of Engineering Education10.1080/03043797.2024.2446551(1-22)Online publication date: 28-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2024.2446551
Luo XZhang R(2024)Decoding the gendered design and (dis)affordances of face-editing technologies in ChinaInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103149181:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103149
Hashmati NPenzenstadler B(2024)How Users Perceive the Representation of Non-binary Gender in Software Systems: An Interview StudyEquity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Software Engineering10.1007/978-1-4842-9651-6_5(69-90)Online publication date: 21-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9651-6_5
Wu JUttal D(2024)Diversifying computer science: An examination of the potential influences of women‐in‐computing groupsScience Education10.1002/sce.21861108:3(957-980)Online publication date: 26-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21861
Gamboa GToapanta J(2023)Web page user interface development for business shoe storesInternational Journal of Engineering Insights10.61961/injei.v1i1.81:1(30-35)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.61961/injei.v1i1.8
Dagan ESarma AChang AD’Angelo SDicker JMurphy-Hill EChandra SBlincoe KTonella P(2023)Building and Sustaining Ethnically, Racially, and Gender Diverse Software Engineering Teams: A Study at GoogleProceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3611643.3616273(631-643)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
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