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Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

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Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#91

Post by lovemenot »

peterjlee wrote: post #86

I feel like the author wrote this article with a bias that Western websites are better and more aesthetically pleasing because it's simpler. But those are all subjective matters and Asian users probably prefer what they have. I come from a Korean background and I visit many different Korean and American websites daily, including the ones mentioned in the article. While some of the reasons given may seem plausible, no…

The bias you speak about is evident in the article's title. "Why Japanese Web Design Is So ... Different". The baseline is by implication English design, since the article was written in English. Probably also some subset of English sites that the author feels is representative, and expects his/her readers to resonate with. This is fine, but the problem is that this bias is not made explicit. It feels a little like asking "why are all these foreigners speaking funny languages?"

Since Japanese sites apparently look like they have not evolved since they were last like English sites around 1998, the better question might have been what factors have been driving evolution of English sites which did not affect Japanese? You may add other languages, but I'll just stick with Japanese since it is referenced by the OP.

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#92

Post by andor »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #58
verisimilidude wrote: post #51

One of these points is way off the mark. I'll add my own two cents. Language Barrier - The web and most of the programming languages which drive it were designed by English speakers or western corporations and hence the majority of documentation and educational resources are also in English. Although much gets translated this still causes a delay in new technologies and trends being adopted. 1. Many of the Japanese c…

Your last point is dead-on, and I think it's not just true for Japan but also for Germany and Russia. People from these countries tend to approach technology from a much more hardware or math centric view. The interest in UI stuff is nowhere as great as in the US and it doesn't garner the same level of reputation.

Can you give a few examples?

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#93

Post by jsemrau »

DanI-S wrote: post #26

> "Walking around Tokyo, I often get the feeling of being stuck in a 1980′s vision of the future" I'm British, living in the US, and I've always felt this way about America. I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain. Not sure what to make of it, but it's interesting!

I would assume that this comes from a general feeling of disengagement to the urban environment that person is living as the 1980's were a period of significant anxiety about the future. Science Fiction of this period tends to be quite dark. After living in Honolulu, San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore, I believe that only Singapore truly has a blue-print of the future laid out properly. A lot of green / smart housing developments. Deeply multi-cultural. Strong emphasis on education and personal development (plus world-class universities to support this). Of course living in an endless summer helps.

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#94

Post by rapind »

blah32497 wrote: post #73
pflats wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the vast majority of your criticisms, I wouldn't be surprised if you're underestimating the language barrier issue. > Is the claim that the Japanese are technologically behind the rest of the world? Why would web development/design be different than almost every other technical industry? Many programming languages are based on English and the Latin script. Programming, and more specifically web pro…

I would expand this to include the sciences. I did a 2 month industry internship in Japan a few years ago and I was blown away by the effects of the language barrier. They are incredibly disconnected from the rest of the world. While the rest of the world is publishing their results in English, they are publishing in their own Japanese trade journals. It's kind of ironic, b/c in a less developed country (China), or a…

Well Ruby came out of Japan. So in 1995 some of Japan's coders were programming like it was 2005.

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#95

Post by smoyer »

404 - HN Effect :(

"Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) mod_jk/1.2.25 mod_python/3.3.1 Python/2.5.2 PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.27 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.8g mod_perl/2.0.3 Perl/v5.8.8 Server at randomwire.com Port 80"

If this is your server, you shouldn't be giving so much information away. Make would-be attackers work a be at enumerating you.

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#96

Post by okonomiyaki3000 »

"Different" is a very diplomatic way of saying it. Probably better to just call it what it is: wrong. The link seems to be dead so I haven't even read the article but I do have some personal experience in the matter.

While there are a bunch of reasons for why it is the way it is, I think a big part of it is the goddamned Keitai. For a lot of Japanese, the only way they ever accessed the web was via their mobile phone. Until smartphones, this meant a very very dumbed down experience. Sadly, even now that smartphones are prevalent, there's still an attitude of "Let's wait and see if this smartphone fad keeps up for a while..."

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#98

Post by blt »

anigbrowl wrote: post #50
leokun wrote: post #11

It's not just Japan or asian websites. The further away you get from the silicon valley bubble, the more sites look like they are from the late 90's. It's not really even location specific, more how tuned in developers are to the bay area style. You can look at local news papers in the US for example, or even government sites. I think part of the reason is that there's a lot of design talent in the bay area, and the…

That's a good thing. I am sick of lots of space and less content - I I go to websites to read things, not just look at them. A lot of minimalist websites are pretty in the abstract but unfriendly towards potential customers by withholding information or making users jump through hoops to get to it.

Yeah a lot of websites make you scroll too much. So sick of scrolling like 3 pages to see one sentence slide in from the left in 48 point text.

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#99

Post by jimeuxx »

iambateman wrote: post #19

Ok, there's some truth to this article, I'm not going to say the author is all wrong, but look at Amazon.com's home page and imagine you couldn't read English. http://cl.ly/image/2i0r0G091U0P It would look really jumbled, incoherent, and poorly architected. Given that you can speak English, it's relatively easy to digest the nav, suggested books, ads, etc. My guess is that there are cultural expectations driving thei…

I can read Japanese fluently, and Amazon.jp is no problem to navigate (it's a dream compared to Rakuten), but I still find many Japanese sites to be a cluttered mess. I've noticed some nicer ones recently that seem to be on the Bootstrap bandwagon, but overall the browsing experience is terrible for me.

I have a retina screen now, but the effect of cheap Windows laptops on the aesthetics of Japanese text shouldn't be underestimated either.

Re: Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different

#100

Post by T-Winsnes »

smoyer wrote: post #95

404 - HN Effect :( "Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) mod_jk/1.2.25 mod_python/3.3.1 Python/2.5.2 PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.27 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.8g mod_perl/2.0.3 Perl/v5.8.8 Server at randomwire.com Port 80" If this is your server, you shouldn't be giving so much information away. Make would-be attackers work a be at enumerating you.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Google captured the page before it went down :)

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