Friday Feminine Gamification Viewpoint: Eye contact
In one of our previous posts I mentioned that women are more likely to have face-to-face conversations and men are more likely to sit side by side with friends when having conversations. You may find this a marginal difference, but did you know that eye contact also activates the part of the brain where we process emotions, we respond to the fusiform facial area in neurological trigger terms. In other neuro-scientific studies the emotional and communication wiring of women in the brain is more connected and covers a larger part of the brain, so it shouldn’t as a surprise that when looking for connections, women rely heavily n all forms of communication and the eyes convey a lot.
Several studies have pointed out that people who make higher levels of eye contact are perceived as:
- more dominant and powerful
- more warm and personable
- more attractive and likeable
- more qualified, skilled, competent and valuable
- more trustworthy, honest and sincere
- more confident and emotionally stable
and to connect with ladies it is downright essential.
When designing for engagement images of people expressing the values you are trying to evoke will assist in creating this perception. A good approach is to include frontal facial images with a clear emotional indicators to trigger a heart connection.
If you have a gamification campaign aimed at engaging ladies, think carefully about the messages your images send, inanimate objects whilst they may look pleasing to the eye, they don’t help in making a connection, however one genuine lady smiling, may well invite them in to explore. When you are using avatars give them friendly inviting eyes, unless you are trying to evoke a rather different emotion.
At the same time images can give an opportunity to identify and feel a sense of belonging to a brand or course or site. When appealing to professional career ladies, have similar images displayed, if it is the working mother then have images of these, etc. Be as specific as possible to engage with your audience.
Where will you use inviting facial images to engage and what are the pictures of choice you will use?
