Gender neutral photos for users who don’t yet have a profile picture
I am administering a web application that has male and female users.
Currently, the default user photo is:
I don't like this because it seems rather masculine and gives me the impression that the database has me recorded as a male.
I think changing the default to this makes sense:
This is more of a gender neutral avatar.
Questions:
- Would the first image be considered inconsiderate by a typical (female) user?
- Does the second image rectify the problem created by the first image?
Note that the application does not know whether the user is male or female and so having two separate default photos, one male and the other female, is not possible.
Edit: I have been asked to define the characteristics that make an avatar gender neutral. I am not sure I can do this objectively and that is why I choose to pick an avatar that has a very slight representation of a human head and shoulders. In other words, I prefer to solve the problem by not having a man-like or woman-like shadow at all.