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The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

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Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#71

Post by abustamam »

BariumBlue wrote: post #63
WD-42 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who has attempted to play Final Fantasy XIV beyond the free trial has experienced this. Their subscription management web app is so incredibly bad it takes a significant amount of time and effort just to purchase a subscription. I wonder how much revenue they lose simply from people giving up.

I was bored and tried playing FF14 about a year ago. You need to do the usual download a launcher to download the game, fine. It asks you to log in before it'll download, fine. It crashes ~10% of the way through downloading the game. Not great but you can make it by restarting the launcher and trying again. And again and again, about a dozen times. It does eventually finish though, and I did almost successfully make…

I played on my Playstation when I played a few years back, fortunately it was a seamless process! As parent comment said though, subscription process was almost user hostile for some reason.

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#72

Post by WorldPeas »

ghusto wrote: post #50
rickcarlino wrote: post #18

Are westerners entering a period of “minimalism fatigue”? Anecdotally it seems like color and texture are slowly taking hold in designs, especially in works targeting a younger demographic. Example: liquid glass, anything published by Taco Bell, the meme of making sites look like they came from Geocities in 99, etc...

Hopefully. Everyone copied Apple without pausing to consider; "hey, does this make things _less_ usable?". Hint: yes, yes it does.

And now they're following Apple into maximalism again making it even less usable. As someone who did accessibility, minimalism did make it easier, it's hard to do maximalism right, one needs to use component extension and extensive styling rules for overlaps and bounding boxes versus a simple vector rectangle with revolved corners. I do miss the 2000s steel/gradient/font/faux 3d icewm-ish looks, they were pretty easy to pull off and didn't really hinder usability

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#73

Post by p_j_w »

psygn89 wrote: post #43

Having lived in Japan it feels they either they go all in on minimalist or maximalist. Some stores are quiet, others are obnoxiously loud and brightly lit to where you don't see your own shadow. Some magazines have a ridiculous amount of text on the cover, distorting the characters to fit with bold text stroking, others especially fashion might have one line if any at all alongside their logo. Game and book covers ca…

>others are obnoxiously loud and brightly lit to where you don't see your own shadow.

The name Don Quixote now triggers a PTSD reaction in me.

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#74

Post by carlosjobim »

rolymath wrote: post #10

I think the answer is more obvious: The average Japanese web designer doesn't assume his user is an idiot, while western design is more condescending

A potential customer who is a non-idiot will be able to work around idiotic business practices, while a potential customer who is an idiot won't be able to work around good business practices.

Hence, you grab more customers by catering to idiots. Unless you as a business want to avoid these clients.

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#75

Post by carlosjobim »

ctmnt wrote: post #19
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sooner three-dot and hamburger menus fall out of favor the better. They're a couple of those UI patterns where 8-9 times out of 10 there was probably a more suitable pattern that should've been used instead.

I agree that they’re bad patterns (the three dot menu particularly so, it often just looks like a mistake), but what would be more functional on a small screen? I’d love to see some good alternatives that I could adopt in my own projects.

If you don't crowd your menu, then you can just have the text links below the website logo, with flex-direction: row and justify-content: center

It'll take up less than half of a smart phone screen, and customers don't need to bother with any burger menu.

The phone web should only have two functions: Poke and scroll. For most normal websites that is.

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#76

Post by z2 »

fsh wrote: post #48
usui wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is probably downstream of the fact that if you visit any of the individual JR sites from the expandable map at the bottom, you'll discover they're all down at this time as well. Let's scrap the website and make a staffed phone line or fax machine with operating hours.

Considering the state of japanese IT, there is probably a person typing each reservation from the website into a 1980s mainframe.

After receiving the orders that were actually printed from an Internet Explorer 6 only website, and faxed over from another office before being re-scanned in along with a barcode that usually failed to make it over the fax, hence the need to hand-type things. True story (not for JR specifically, but circa 2013)

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#77

Post by thewebguyd »

anal_reactor wrote: post #69
thewebguyd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so. I never bought into the minimalism/flat design hype and have lamented its loss ever since. What’s worse is it bled out of the digital world and into the physical. There’s a real lack of color in our modern world, at least over here in the US. Everything is so neutral and boring, all in the name of efficiency.

Minimalism does have its merits though. When decorating my apartment I looked for ways to use color without making whole thing look like confetti poop.

Yeah I'll agree there, as the saying goes "all things in moderation." It's when it goes too far is when it starts to suck the life and human-ness out of everything.

I suppose my issue is more with the "corporate minimalism" trend rather than minimalist design in general.

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#78

Post by codethief »

underlines wrote: post #57

The reposts go on and on, while Japanese web design stays the same https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25148942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6718067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16254569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30523955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33745146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35209424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16272392 https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…

The article shared here seems to be a 2022 follow-up of sorts to the original blog post from 2013 that your links reference.

Re: The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)

#80

Post by multjoy »

usui wrote: post #22

I read this piece when it came out in 2022. Maybe it should be marked with "(2022)". Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33745146 I just want to add that in addition to peculiar web design, Japanese websites have a way of assuming architectures or usage patterns where servers need to sleep or do some kind of scheduled job, which is really weird for people used to sites that need to account for a…

The UK driving licence authority (DVLA) also has a period in which you can’t conduct a range of transactions overnight, but that’s because it interfaces with systems that still run batch jobs overnight and the cost of making it all 24/7 simply wasn’t worth it considering the demand.
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