Why do Chinese websites look so busy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#31

Post by gozur88 » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

I asked the same question of a Japanese web developer friend a decade ago, since Japanese sites (at least, back then) were very similar. The answer he gave made sense.

He said the reason Japanese websites were so busy was the greater percentage of mobile-only customers, many of whom weren't using smartphones. You could go to a website on your cheap "feature phone" and still comfortably navigate a site that was mostly a sea of links, while the sort of site you see more commonly in the West requires navigating too many pages.

Smart phone penetration in China is still around 50%, so I wouldn't be surprised if the same logic applies.

EDIT: He also said in Japan programmers have about the same social status as the guy on the loading dock, so many of the corporate sites were programmed by fresh-out-of-college guys who would be passing that task off to someone else as soon as possible. Not sure if the same applies in China.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#32

Post by mook » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

icegreentea wrote: post #17

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reasons the article lays out - that the underlying aspects of the written language drives the difference. Which I thought was really interesting as I'd never really considered them.

The article does a poor job differentiating between different types of "clutter". For example, while a single continuous block of chinese text will look more dense than latin script for the reasons outlined, it does not explain why chinese websites seem to lay out their blocks differently. Anecdotally, chinese webpages seems to be laid out far more like newspapers than latin script equivalents.

It seems much easier to line break CJK (pay a bit of attention near punctuation, otherwise breaking anywhere would do a decent job). Compared to Latin-based languages, where hyphenation would be involved, which means understanding the actual language.

Try forcing comments in this thread into 20em width, for example.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#33

Post by mikeash » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 12:59 AM UTC

fengwick3 wrote: post #25

hunvreus wrote: post #22

I doubt the author has a first hand experience with the Chinese market: - Typing Chinese with a keyboard isn't hard... at all. Pinyin input is about as straightforward and fast as typing in English. - Internet in China isn't slow. That is as long as you're visiting sites that are hosted in China, which most people in China do. I used to be surprised actually at how good video streaming was when I first arrived in Chi…

Interesting points, but minor correction here. Typing Chinese efficiently has to do with the input method. Using pinyin as you suggest is actually hopelessly slow as you would have to first recall the precise pronunciation of the word (the -n vs -ng for example), type the pinyin, then scroll through the (normally) massive list of words. Of course, things like fuzzy pinyin and context aware suggestions help, but adopt…

I've never seen a Chinese person using handwriting input, even though it's widely available on smartphones. They all use pinyin input because it's easiest and fastest.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#34

Post by rangibaby » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:00 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #16

wodenokoto wrote: post #9

Doesn't anyone know a Chinese/Japanese webdesigner? This question gets asked a lot and it is always answered by westerners who are second guessing. Where are the design theories from the east? What is the "3 click" rule for eastern websites? What are eastern design students told instead of "use plenty of white space" and "keep it simple and focused"?

My wife does some web design, much of it is just an overly Confucian culture where some idiot with seniority but no experience or taste gets to make the decisions and those who know better don't get to do input. It really is just a dysfunctional working environment.

This all the way. Japanese are fond of minimal design, but everyone in the chain of command needs to have an Opinion(tm), with the end result turning into a safe, boring mess.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#35

Post by joeguilmette » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:00 AM UTC

I read a few years ago that Tripadvisor (IIRC) was launching in Japan. They basically took the US version of the site and translated it. In testing, Japanese users had a high bounce rate and distrusted the site because it lacked information - too much white space.

They redesigned it to make it more dense and less 'clean and elegant' and Japanese users trusted and used the site much more heavily. I looked, but can't find the link to this article.

Perhaps Asian designers design sites like this because Asian users are turned on to them the same as we are to simple and focused sites.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#36

Post by andrezsanchez » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:01 AM UTC

fengwick3 wrote: post #25

hunvreus wrote: post #22

I doubt the author has a first hand experience with the Chinese market: - Typing Chinese with a keyboard isn't hard... at all. Pinyin input is about as straightforward and fast as typing in English. - Internet in China isn't slow. That is as long as you're visiting sites that are hosted in China, which most people in China do. I used to be surprised actually at how good video streaming was when I first arrived in Chi…

Interesting points, but minor correction here. Typing Chinese efficiently has to do with the input method. Using pinyin as you suggest is actually hopelessly slow as you would have to first recall the precise pronunciation of the word (the -n vs -ng for example), type the pinyin, then scroll through the (normally) massive list of words. Of course, things like fuzzy pinyin and context aware suggestions help, but adopt…

> "Using pinyin as you suggest is actually hopelessly slow"

Everyone I've encountered in China seems to do it just fine. It is only hopelessly slow if you type one character at a time.

> "adopting an input method based on the character radical composition or handwriting recognition is much faster"

What character radical input method are you talking about? I can't imagine any input method using radical composition being faster, it would be comparable to using Latin roots to type out English words; there are just too many to be practical. You can actually do this on Pleco, but it takes forever, even longer than typing one character at a time in pinyin.

Handwriting could work assuming you can handwrite Chinese quickly (I would be deathly slow as I can't read a typical handwritten cursive note, much less write one). I think handwriting recognition is already pretty good, people just use pinyin because it's the easiest.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#37

Post by mikeash » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:02 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #3

VeejayRampay wrote: post #2

Why are western websites so empty?

Good point. The current trend in web site design is You Will Begin Our Onboarding Process Now Or Else. YC companies are notable for this, with sites with little info and a huge "Sign up" box. (Often, this is because the product/service isn't shipping yet, so they're just building a mailing list.)

What really pisses me off is when they keep doing this after they have a real product and real users. Signing up is easy, but if you're already a user then screw you, find the little login link in the corner.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#38

Post by mook » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:04 AM UTC

dennyabraham wrote: post #13

the vast difference between the chinese system of writing and alphabets i'm used to brings to mind a question: is there a notion of linear ordering of chinese characters? are all chinese characters enumerated (to the layperson, i understand that they'd have to be numbered to be encoded)?

There are a few possibilities; dictionaries usually go by (number of strokes in the radical) + (number of strokes remaining). Because there are too many characters, there's usually a phonetic-based system involved too (Pinyin, Zhuyin, Kana, and Hangul); those have internal sorting, and that can be used too.

This is all separate from, say, Unicode code point ordering.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#39

Post by jacalata » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:10 AM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #7

VeejayRampay wrote: post #2

Why are western websites so empty?

The same reasons the article lays out - that the underlying aspects of the written language drives the difference. Which I thought was really interesting as I'd never really considered them.

Then why did English language websites start out so cluttered? If it was an intrinsic result of the language then it wouldn't be a modern thing.

Re: Why do Chinese websites look so busy?

#40

Post by hunvreus » Mon, Feb 08, 2016, 1:12 AM UTC

fengwick3 wrote: post #25

hunvreus wrote: post #22

I doubt the author has a first hand experience with the Chinese market: - Typing Chinese with a keyboard isn't hard... at all. Pinyin input is about as straightforward and fast as typing in English. - Internet in China isn't slow. That is as long as you're visiting sites that are hosted in China, which most people in China do. I used to be surprised actually at how good video streaming was when I first arrived in Chi…

Interesting points, but minor correction here. Typing Chinese efficiently has to do with the input method. Using pinyin as you suggest is actually hopelessly slow as you would have to first recall the precise pronunciation of the word (the -n vs -ng for example), type the pinyin, then scroll through the (normally) massive list of words. Of course, things like fuzzy pinyin and context aware suggestions help, but adopt…

I can't remember seeing anybody using anything but pinyin input, foreigners and locals alike. You can compose entire sentences and let the software pick the correct hanzi in bulk.