I hope I'm not making a faux pas posting this...
Your wife sounds about like my buddy's (hairdressing GRITS) and this is what she requested as her wedding gift.
She'd requested the quasi-santoku drop to the point and handle accents--she wanted something that she could wear on her belt for hunting, good for caping...or at campside for chopping w/e for supper.
She also wanted it something that would easily clean up and then ride sidesaddle in her purse for protection, a good thick, wide blade for baton, a tapered tang to make sure they got the "point" when she said back off before they ended up taking the point.
For the accessorized feeling, she requested accents like mokume gane bolsters, blue liners, and mosaic pins.
In plain English--
To help her come to her decisions, I started with the accents she wanted, by getting her mind set on what she could readily look at, it helped to form the rest of the knife.
Getting the handle settled helped transition to blade shape and size--in her case, she didn't want something girly, had some beef to it, and could stand some light forge marking to show it was hand made.
The width of the blade got worked out between her interests and her idea of what knives
do and what she intended for hers. In this case, she has a tendancy to reach up on the spine to scrape between hides, or pinches the ricasso area when cooking.
Aspects like ergonomics went hand in hand with her (then) soon-to-be hubby's lessons on knife fighting (from where they come from in Louisiana, forgetaboutit). Long story short, she wanted its self defense use to start off by smacking with the side of the blade, worse giving them a poke with the hilt, and if that didn't settle things, turning to the edge--full slicing swing.
My female customers are by far some of my best, their input in design has much more detail than I sometimes get from even my male blade-aficionado customers. However, if they're not knife fans themselves, they are easily deterred if they feel pressured or overwhelmed if you throw too much at them at once, like launching into the metallurgy. For stuff like blade material choice, once they have a firm idea of what they're looking at, then you can ask about edge retention, temper lines, or hamon.
By and large, small bits here and there before giving them a picture to look at will do the most good. I make patterns from particle board prior to profiling or forging--9 times out of 10, women will be that much more likely to appreciate a trial pattern prior to making the knife. Whereas male customers will turn down an offer to try it on for size, a woman will go through all their anticipated motions. Which is the biggest point: women are particular and practical.
