Default gender, "Male" or "Female"

Question

Should our default gender when selecting male/female on the dropdown list be based on the local sex ratio (if a country have more female than male then female is the default value)?

So if someone forgets to enter their gender, you plan on recording it as whatever the default is? — JohnGB, Nov 02 '11 at 09:32
FYI you're asking for sex not gender, at least presumably gender is less relevant. Besides, sex ratio is usually almost exactly a 50% split with about 2% margin of error--I would never assume a default based on numbers, even ignoring the reasons others have stated below — Ben Brocka, Nov 02 '11 at 13:17
Even sex isn't a simple Male/Female - at least allow a blank option for the few who don't fall into either — Izkata, Nov 02 '11 at 14:00
@BenBrocka there are a number of countries with large skew's in the ratio due to selective abortions. — Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight, Nov 02 '11 at 14:14
IMHO, I'd first ask if this is even information that is really important to collect. — DA01, Nov 02 '11 at 14:28
Or you could just add one more option of "I'd rather not share". — DA01, Nov 02 '11 at 18:45
Why do you need the gender? Is there a real, true, legitimate need for it? How about just leaving it out entirely? — Alex Feinman, Nov 02 '11 at 19:46
I always want to select "Alpha-Male", but those radio-buttons never let me...
@Ben Brocka: Don't assume a 50/50 ratio on each site. Depending on the topic you could get more than 90% of the one or other gender (tech/gadgets/cars vs. diet/cooking etc.) — iHaveacomputer, Nov 03 '11 at 04:18
Choose whatever produces the least number of clicks for the majority that are filling in the form. If the site is directed for women then women. Same for men. If it is a 50/50 split, then provide a 'please fill in' option instead to not put anyone's nose out of joint. — Darren, Nov 09 '11 at 20:41
Building on what @JuliusA said, check out the ISO standard for the representation of human sexes: Not known, Male, Female and Not applicable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_5218 — AndrewJacksonZA, Jun 04 '13 at 06:49
It depends. What are you creating? How and where are you marketing it? The number of men or women in a country is not what makes the difference. For example, a website about makeup will probably have more female visitors than male, even if it's a city of mostly men. Also, it might be worth considering whether you need gender. Article about this: http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienation — Kimberley D, Nov 02 '11 at 08:20
Every time I come across a form with male / female / rather not say, it annoys me. It should be male / female / other / rather not say, at a minimum. I am happy to disclose my gender, if the form actually gives me an option to do so accurately. — Yvonne Aburrow, Feb 15 '16 at 12:01
Add another "why are you asking?" question. If you have a real need to know, then that need will significantly influence any answer I might give. In particular, if you actually need to know, then you need to consider that gender is a lot more complex than the answers on offer here suggest.
If you don't have have a real need to know, then don't ask.

If you have to ask, have a look at this similar question: http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/19923/should-gender-be-required-or-is-there-a-better-way-to-collect-this-informatio?rq=1 — Adrian Long, Apr 04 '17 at 11:04
@Darren you seem to be neglecting the cost of an error, which can be much more than a single click, and the probability of which is increased by your suggestion. A plausible scenario is it's 60/40 women/men. By your logic, the form should have "woman" checked, so that only 40% of people need to click to switch it. The problem is, each time a man mistakenly neglects to switch it, it's now wrong and the recipe for fixing it is likely far more complicated than a single click, if it can even be found or even exists at all. For this reason, perhaps it's better to not have a default. — Don Hatch, Aug 01 '18 at 04:42
That said, it's sad if a site is directed for women more than men or vice versa. I'd much rather not ask at all, and not be asked, as a user. — Don Hatch, Aug 01 '18 at 04:44
default: none. Users may want to avoid sharing this information anyway, so make the default and empty option. — allo, Aug 03 '18 at 09:21

score 135 · Accepted Answer · edited May 15 '18 at 17:53

135

You don't select a default at all

Using a drop down list or a radio group - you let the user decide - and this also prevents accidental submission of a form without the user setting this value (assuming it's gets validated) because there is no other way of validating it - only the user knows their gender so there is no right/wrong validation other than 'is it set'

Here are examples from Windows Live ID sign-up, Facebook sign-up, Yahoo sign-up

enter image description here

In fact in my own survey of over 100 high profile sign-up forms:

Only 20% of those sites asked the gender of which:

20 did not pre-select - by using one of the options above.
2 forms prefilled with the option 'Female' (bebo and foursquare)
0 forms prefilled with 'Male'

Furthermore - of the 20 that did not pre-select:

2 sites - TypePad and Etsy, gave options to not provide gender via a third option:

enter image description here

Grooveshark go the extra mile (although I'd at least expect consistency)

to try and make it clearer by using symbols on their sign up:

enter image description here

or in their 'edit profile' they use another version in which the wording has clearly been carefully considered and accounts for the gender/sex issue as to how the user identifies themselves:

enter image description here

edited May 15 '18 at 17:53

Mayo

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answered Nov 02 '11 at 09:03

Roger Attrill

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Got an external article you can link to where you provide more info about it all? – Chris Morgan Nov 02 '11 at 12:17
@ChrisMorgan Sorry, wish I could say yes but no not at the moment - not enough hours in the day! – Roger Attrill Nov 02 '11 at 12:22
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Check out the wording on the Grooveshark one. Remember that some people do find it difficult to answer these questions. Maybe you could edit your answer to include this example? http://imgur.com/odxmx – MSpeed Nov 02 '11 at 12:33
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+1 Good answer, my thoughts exactly. Would be interesting to do some empirical testing to find out how many people would "forget" to change the gender (i.e. how many males are registered as female for bebo and foursquare). – Jeroen Nov 02 '11 at 12:34
@billynomates1 - thanks! I have added grooveshark - but using the current iconified version – Roger Attrill Nov 02 '11 at 12:47
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Not sure that Grooveshark's symbols actually make anything clearer. (What if I want to log in as male but I'm not wearing a baseball cap???) – hairboat Nov 02 '11 at 14:25
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+1 for mentioning the "rather not say" option. This is a pretty sensitive subject. When Google+ launched, having a published sex was mandatory. This caused an enormous stir. Randall Munroe wrote a comprehensive post on the subject. – Barend Nov 02 '11 at 14:31
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@RogerAttrill - The one I got a screenshot of was from the "Edit Profile" section. I'm surprised they differ, really! But my point was the wording of "I identify as" includes people who's legal sex differs from their gender. – MSpeed Nov 02 '11 at 15:26
@billynomates1 - ok I didn't realise there were going to be two different versions depending on the form!! Ive added that one as well because it does address some sensitive isues. Thank you. – Roger Attrill Nov 02 '11 at 16:17
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TypePad and Etsy have the right idea: no default, and offer an option to rather not say. Depending on the audience, you may want to offer more choices. – Todd Sieling Nov 02 '11 at 19:28
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"Rather not say" is a step in the right direction, but it still excludes "I'd like to say, but I'm neither!" – Gray May 28 '13 at 16:03

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 02 '11 at 07:37

18

How about asking the user to select their gender in the form of their preferred third-person pronoun ("his", "her", "their"), instead of providing their biological sex?

Listing "their" rather than "its", because I doubt anyone wants to be referred to as "it". For example:

Which sentence sounds right?
[ ] <user> updated his profile.
[ ] <user> updated her profile.
[ ] <user> updated their profile.

answered Dec 02 '11 at 07:37

Graham

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+1. This looks rather odd at first, but "Which pronouns do you prefer?" is actually the standard way to ask questions about gender in spaces which are friendly to trans and genderqueer people. – TRiG Sep 30 '12 at 20:16
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I feel this comes with the extra price of confusing every or almost every user. You have to stop and think what's being asked. – Kos May 15 '15 at 08:04
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this only works in some languages like English. You can't use this in some other languages – Ooker Mar 29 '17 at 16:25
Similar to this, I've seen in a lot of sites where you choose how you prefer to be called: Mr/Mrs/Ms. Which can be adapted to other languages than english. – Luciano Apr 04 '17 at 12:42
@Luciano, not really. I don't think many languages differentiate between Mrs and Ms. – Rudey Apr 12 '17 at 13:44
@RuudLenders Portuguese does: Sra / Srta. Similar for Italian / Spanish, so possibly other languages as well. You don't need many more languages than those to cover good part of the world. But that's beside the point. – Luciano Apr 12 '17 at 14:16
Forgot to mention the neutral pronouns, besides They/Them, some people prefer Ey/Em, Ze/Hir, Ze/Zir, Ze/Zem, etc. – Graham Aug 13 '17 at 11:37
The question is about what the default should be, not what the options should be. Although there are questions covering just that! – Aug 02 '18 at 15:14

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 02 '11 at 09:37

Unless you have a good reason to have the gender, I would agree with @Roger that not pre-selecting is the best option. I would also add that not validating at all, and allowing a selection of Male and Female is probably the best option.

The clientelle of the site is also important, and not always obvious. Females are far more common users of web sites - especially e-commerce - than are normally expected. Knowing your users is critical if you insist on setting a default - many of the sites I have worked on, female would be default.

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited May 28 '13 at 00:49

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In form fields like that, I usually make the first value null, to indicate no item was selected.

As far as order, I would either defer to the audience, then just go standard M/F

For the drop down, make it optional, with the default value of null (so as to allow form submission without error)

Gender:
Select one  <null>
Male        <male>
Female      <female>

edited May 28 '13 at 00:49

rk.

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answered Dec 05 '11 at 16:57

Mike Hill

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score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 26 '13 at 13:00

-1

I believe you should not leave a default option if you want to get this information. Just use radio buttons, for example. And validate that the user has selected an option on submit.

answered Jun 26 '13 at 13:00

Alex Marinov

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Radio buttons should have a default selection. Point 9 http://www.nngroup.com/articles/checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/ – rk. Jun 26 '13 at 13:57
@rk Yes. This comment should be on most answers on this question, from the look of it. – TernaryTopiary Apr 04 '17 at 09:39

Default gender, "Male" or "Female"

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