Pretty comprehensive article by the Japan Times that touches on aspects I haven't seen mentioned in other pieces on this topic. Talks about a lot more than just visual density too, like the use of images instead of text, the use of mixed scripts in Japanese, along with product design, TV advertisements, signage in general, technical requirements of CJK fonts and Unicode, etc.
by frozenpandaman
16 comments
Pretty fascinating! Thanks!
> Why Japan’s internet looks weird — unless you live here
i live here and i still find it weird tbh, especially considering how mobile-first this country is
But yeah, all agreed.
Companies I worked for who wanted to expand in Japan always failed at understanding the intricacies of bad Japanese web design, but who the hell cares when that’s not what the users want.
Saving cost on UX research for a specific market, thinking that the one-size-fits-all model works in English so it’ll work the same in German or French. Big surprise, it doesn’t, and Japan is even worse.
Top it up with half-assed translations and it’s the winning combination. People who are in charge have no concept of localisation vs translation, and they look at translation as a cost instead of an investment, ending up with absolute shit quality translations but hey, the work is delivered, and the stakeholders can’t proofread any target language, so it’s as good as done.
They eventually abandoned the Japanese market after a while without surprise, blaming this and that but never questioning their own approach.
Good that someone went in depth research and explanation on the difference.
Interesting enough, Chinese sites also trend towards busier look like the Japanese, so it’s not just “Japan is different from rest of world”
I love this information density. I have the feeling Japan is designing for the “power user” first, and this is not a bad thing.
They don’t shy away from setting a learning curve when the experience is superior in the end over having it simplified at the start.
I wish we in the west would think more often than that.
Even before the Internet…
– TV shows filled with captions, chyrons, digital on-screen graphics, banners and snipes.
– Print ads hanging inside trains with a bomb of pictures and/or walls of text.
– Flyers, handouts, pamphlets with every centimeter of space covered with something.
The online world is no different.
Looking is one thing but what actually culture shocked me was the service DOWNTIME at night for websites like booking tickets and such
That one is actually so ass backwards its crazy to me. Is there any rational reason for this that I’m simply missing?
Beyond the very weird UI, there does not appear to be a common understanding of UI. Each website enforces its own peculiarities. It’s all like one giant captcha.
Yes, completely agreeing with points raised. And the pages would look even weirder with the auto-translation, my conclusion is even the top Japanese web designers do not know how to think out of the box. Searching for information from a hotel website, for example, it’s super frustrating. For all of the texts cramped into every little available space, it’s still difficult to find relevant information.
I don’t mind information density, necessarily, but so many websites are terrible about organizing that information into a sensible hierarchy. I particularly hate how online storefronts cram so much info into the title of a product. It’s crazy how things like generic USB adapters will include an (obviously incomplete) list of compatible smartphones into the product title.
Japan’s websites are the way they are due to mismanagement, lack of expertise, and dated technology. These articles try to explain it away but the truth is these websites are just designed and built poorly and very dated.
Websites in the west don’t need regular downtime, don’t fail nearly as regularly, don’t have unhandled error states, aren’t brittle, and they are faster to load, easier for users (Japanese and otherwise) to find things, and in general a lot more thoughtful and intuitive than the information design found on Japanese websites. Much of good design is universal with relatively tiny differences on the edges.
Yeah, well, I still prefer it to our whitespace-infested modern Western web design, where all you ever see without endless scrolling are one or two lines of information, and everything gets put in boxes, cards or whatever – each of which, of course, gets its own ample whitespace padding again.
To me, that’s the analog to texts where each sentence gets its own paragraph, or tabloid headlines. I guess I just have no taste. At least I can still use Reddit in the old design.
# Why Japan’s internet looks shit — unless you live here
Fixed that for you. Its so awful and I don’t think any excuses such as wanting information density makes any sense when other aspects of Japanese advertising and design are very minimal and pristine.
_”Comments poured in, and responses popped up across various platforms. Know-it-all bloggers, speculating vloggers, LinkedIn designers and smug Redditors — both the disdainful and the defensive — chimed in with theories, all attempting to get to the bottom of Japan’s confounding web aesthetic.”_
…I feel attacked.
In addition, Weird Ads wording can pop out as Japan has no advertising law. Anyone can claim to be ‘best in Japan’ ‘highest’ ‘oldest’ etc with a small line of disclaimer ‘Based on our own investigation’
Another thing is speed. With a VPN I can achieve much higher download speed with my internet ISP sometime…very primitive ISP behavior…
Because attention to detail is inherent in Japanese culture, customers actually read. In fact, if they care about your product, they will read every single line of information you provide. Providing ample information is considered “shinsetsu”—a way to show respect to your customers.
However, claiming that Japanese design lacks aesthetic consideration or attention to detail is completely wrong. If you look closer, you will see that every design involves multiple layers. Big, colorful elements are there to catch your attention. If you are interested, you can dive deeper by reading the smaller text. Look into every corner, and you will find helpful information you didn’t even know you needed.
In fact, when they switched to a “sophisticated Western-style web design,” sales apparently fell, so for retailers this design is the superior one.
Comments are closed.