[I wish this post contained all sorts of "a-ha!" insights. Instead, I hope it simply frames some questions that I find interesting].
Whenever I show Chinese websites to American friends who don’t speak Chinese, the friends universally have the same reaction — “Wow! That site sure is crappy-looking! Guess those guys haven’t learned how to design a good website yet, huh?”
I made the same mistake myself when I moved to Beijing 4 years ago, fresh from the “cutting-edge” of web design in the Bay Area. “Surely,” I thought, “my superior design sensibility is a key ingredient to why I’ll be successful building B2C websites in China!”
Boy, was I wrong.
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, look at the home page of China’s most-popular website (all of these screen shots are a bit old, but things haven’t changed much). You can click on the image to see it in detail.
Above is the home page of Sina.com, showing just what you can see “above the fold” (in other words, without scrolling down).
Now, here’s the above-the-fold home page of my favorite American news site:
For those of you who might argue that Sina is a “portal” and not really a news site, here’s the above-the-fold home page of most popular portal site in the US:
In addition to preferring higher information density per square inch, Chinese readers also seem to prefer higher density per page view. Once again, here’s the home page of Yahoo, showing the entire home page.
Here’s the full-length home page of Sina.com, from the same day:
In case my point isn’t clear, below I’ve placed the full-length web pages of the three sites side-by-side, to scale:
Most Americans are by now nodding their heads: “Yep. Love those US sites. Much more advanced. Clean, simple design. Not cluttered. Guess those Chinese guys will figure that out sooner or later.”
What’s fascinating is that my Chinese friends have a very different take on the US sites: “They look skimpy, and empty. Where’s all the content?? The home page is just navigation.”
After talking about this issue with many friends, it appears that Chinese and American (I won’t say “Western” since I don’t know much about Europeans) look at/read websites in very different ways. [To forestall critics, when I say "Americans" I mean native English speakers and readers who live in America, even though there are obviously many Americans who don't speak English natively].
While it’s clear that both peoples “scan,” and then only sometimes “read”, the way they scan is very different. Chinese people strongly prefer a density that is far beyond what most Americans can tolerate. In addition, Chinese people seem to be scanning for keywords (or more precisely “key-characters”), while Americans like to read “headlines” (aka short pithy phrases) and look at arresting photos.
So here’s my question: “Do Chinese online users and American online users scan/read web pages differently? if so, why? What does that mean for online business?”
It turns out that no one seems to know the answer. I asked Jakob Nielsen, the famous web usability expert, if he knew of any research on this topic. His simple answer: “No.” He suggested I attend his upcoming usability workshop, which looks cool but is (a) beyond my price point and (b) potentially not relevant for the Chinese market (which is the whole point of this post).
I can’t find anyone, anywhere, who is researching this question. If you know someone, please let me know.
I would LOVE to have someone do real research into this issue, using the latest eye-tracking technology. I might even have (gasp!) a shoestring budget to fund this. I’ve approached a friend at the Chinese Central Arts University, but they don’t have the technology. Any takers??
In the meantime, some of my own thoughts on this issue.
First, I decided to compare newspaper front pages in China and the US. i figured that this comparison would yield the same enormous differences in information density. I remembered that Chinese newspapers from years ago were really dense visually. Much to my surprise, though, there are no longer vast differences between the layout and visual density of the top Beijing newspapers and English-language newspapers in New York.
I found this fascinating. Why are the designs of the front pages of the major daily newspapers converging, while the website home pages are not? Does this mean that Chinese newspapers are more, or less, in touch with how their readers want to read?
Then I started to think about what might explain the differences online, since they seem to exist only there. Said another way, are there unique “online” circumstances in China that might be influencing home page design?
I think the answer is yes.
In the US, online advertising is (mostly) sold by “page view”. For example, an advertiser buys a certain amount of page views over time. In China, most online advertising is still sold by time-period, as in “buy an ad on the home page for one month.”
As I thought it through, I realized that these different pricing methodologies created different incentives. In the US, you want “more page views per visit”, because that’s how you create advertising inventory. In China, you create more advertising inventory by making your home page longer.
Is this the explanation?? If so, does this mean that when (if?) China moves to a per-impression model, home pages will get shorter and less dense? Or has the online audience in China become accustomed to super-high density? If so, then how come newspapers are no longer as dense as they were?
By now I hope you’re starting to find these questions as interesting as I find them. I’d love to hear what you think!
42 responses so far ↓
1 John // May 26, 2008 at 7:53 pm
It is an interesting question. You’re right that you aren’t the first to notice this, but given the keywords involved, it’s a bit problematic to search for the topic. Here are a few other commentaries:
http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/?p=540
http://reganmian.net/blog/2007/09/30/website-design-in-china/
http://www.virtual-china.org/2006/03/30/aesthetics-of-abundance/
2 Florian Pihs // May 27, 2008 at 12:17 am
Thanks Melcher. Interesting post. I have asked myself the same questions hundreds of times. While we see Chinese users engage with websites differently that their western counterparts, basic web design principles remain intact (but are largely ignored by most local sites) e.g. there is no engagement after the 3rd screen, but pages are still 5-6 screens long. Blame it on Sina or the lack of usability research.
3 Fons Tuinstra // May 27, 2008 at 4:45 am
I think you are touching here on a key discussion: it is about what your readers want, how to they absorb their information and what is the best way to get a message across.
I do not have a clear answer, but I had some weeks ago an interesting discussion with the chief-editor of the website of the largest broadsheet in Poland:
http://witeam.blogspot.com/2008/04/observation-scrolling-no-longer-problem.html
They had done some research, eye-tracking stuff, and discovered that some of the standard assumption on how people read a website had change over the years. Scrolling (a nono in traditional webdesign) did not seem to be a problem and people did not read anymore from the top-left corner downwards.
Our unproven assumption was then that this might be a generational transition where an increasing number of readers did not have been conditioned to read traditional newspapers anymore, but were open for different ways of reading.
In China, where internet users are relative young and mostly not trained (old) newspaper readers the old way of conditioning reading habits might never have had a root to start with.
4 tmelcher // May 27, 2008 at 5:58 am
Thanks very much for these great comments, and links to articles on the same subject. I’d love to find more people interested in this subject!
5 Paul Denlinger // May 27, 2008 at 8:51 am
Here is my guess.
I think that Sina, Sohu and Netease still have to accomodate many new users, and they are not comfortable clicking through to new pages or inputting Chinese into search boxes. Instead, they prefer to click directly on text links of what they want to read. This forces as much content as possible up to the top-level of the major websites.
From an aesthetics point of view, it is not pretty. But it works in China.
6 Kaiser Kuo // May 27, 2008 at 9:04 am
When I was editor-in-chief of a site here in China back in 1999, I hired a Danish Web designer who built what I thought was a nice, clean, elegant interface–which, of course, elicited confused “where’s the content?” from our Chinese staff. Eric Rosenblum, who was COO of the company, was initially with me on the design issue, having a preference for clean. But then a friend of his straightened him out. “Look at the Chinese retail experience,” Eric relayed to me. “Chinese shoppers want abundance, things falling off the shells and piled up in the aisles. It makes it feel like there’s a sale on.” He suggested that this experience preference translates well onto the web as well. He may be right! Anyway, a heat mapping study would be great. I have a hunch — totally unsupported, of course — that when native readers of Chinese take in text, it’s in a very different way than English readers do, and there’s simply more tolerance for what English readers see as clutter.
7 Thijs // May 27, 2008 at 9:36 am
I’ve looked into this only on the surface level; and if you look at pageview time, the chinese websites have much higher values. I’ve also seen some heatmapping done before and people have issues “finding” information, which may contribute to the viewing time. Whether or not this leads to a more “pleasing” experience, I would not be able to say. I think part of it is just, what people are used to (habits) and not what would be the best design.
8 Gemme // May 27, 2008 at 10:27 am
A user behavior study would indeed be great. Like many other commenters I have struggled with the concept behind all the cluttered pages. Especially in cases that I had to advice clients on this. Do we go Chinese or do we go Western.
My take is that it will depend on the kind of website what will be the best. Is it information, is it e-commerce, is it entertainment or else. My hunch is it that it will also change over time.
One reason, like you mentioned, would be that the dated “advertising per day” model (no incentive to change as a longer page can carry more ads) will be replaced with more mature models that actually convert.
Another reason would be the evolvement of design, there’s aready a lot of the so called web 2.0 design happening.
I asked a company that actually does user behavior and eye tracking testing but for now their Chinese office doesn’ do this yet as it’s very expensive and clients are’nt yet at the stage that they see the benefit.
I only know of one Chinese eyetracking study but this once was focused on the difference of behavior on Baidu and Google, see http://www.enquiroresearch.com/chinese-search-engine-engagement.aspx .
Very intersting but unfortunately the Baidu and Google homepages have a rather clean lay out so they may not help too much here.
9 Paul Denlinger // May 27, 2008 at 12:29 pm
It would be interesting to study how eye-tracking behavior works differently in east and west. If you look at magazine layouts in Taiwan, Japan and Korea, you will see the same in your face cluttered layouts.
10 cerebus // May 27, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I’ve always wondered why Chinese websites always open links in a new window (unless you specify tabs in your browser). My theory is that one reason for the clutter is that there isn’t a culture of consumer complaints in China: no proper feedback mechanism. So although people might find it annoying, they’ll be hard-pressed to actually complain. It always seems to me Chinese websites just aren’t considerate, and want to take over your whole screen and browser with floating flash ads and pop-ups. TV does the same: it’s not uncommon to see the same ad three or four times in a row. I don’t think arguments about Chinese consumer expectations hold water: more likely Chinese advertiser expectations are to blame. The old story: you only need to sell something once to every Chinese person and you’ll be a millionaire. Who cares if some people are annoyed? They’re not going to complain anyway.
(Please don’t attack the obvious generalizations in this opinion. Rather address the questions. I thank you in advance.)
11 tmelcher // May 27, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Cerebus,
Thanks for the comment. Too bad your blog is blocked from Beijing!
I don’t quite agree about the culture of no consumer complaints here. I hear Chinese colleagues bitching about consumer experiences all the time, and the BBSes are full of horror stories. And lately more companies seem to be taking notice.
Based on talking with Chinese friends, it seems they really do prefer highly-dense presentation. Other posters here have called it a “theory of abundance”, which is an interesting metaphor.
Bottom line is that I don’t know. But I’ve seen too many foreign web companies come to China and make mistakes from day one by assuming “good web design” is global…
Thanks again!
12 Robert Ness // May 27, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I think you are right on the money with the advertising argument. It all comes down to a sales person saying–”your ad gets on the front page of Sina”.
Let’s not forget about the simple power of doing things the way people have been doing it before you. Sina was one of the first big internet successes in China, so most new websites aren’t going to question the wisdom of their UI design. And when your a media buyer who is accountable to a boss, which is easier to say if things don’t go well, “I placed the ad on the front page of Sina!” or “I placed the ad on an archived page that gets high page views from search engine users searching for relevant keywords!”
Let’s avoid the trap of explaining things with culture instead of explicit motivations.
13 tmelcher // May 27, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Robert,
I love what you wrote: “avoid the trap of explaining things with culture instead of explicit motivations”. sounds like the inside of a fortune cookie. Seriously. I’ve also thought that basic motivations (such as makin’ money) usually trump more-subtle ones…
14 C. Maoxian // May 27, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Baidu’s uncluttered page is a near-exact copy of Google’s and it’s the most popular search site, so I’m not sure what that says.
In general, I think Chinese people are much more comfortable with clutter (both online and off-) than Westerners (esp. northern Europeans). Ever been to a Chinese restaurant that didn’t have a stack of junk in at least one corner? That’s the real-world equivalent of the ethereal blinking flash ad that floats across the screen at sina or one of a million other (unbearable) Chinese websites.
The Chinese love of 热闹 as opposed to quiet contemplation is another thing to consider. Anyway, an interesting topic, Melcher.
15 dedlam // May 27, 2008 at 3:25 pm
@cerebus it’s so it is easier to go back to the front page where all the “content” is.
Also Chinese language originally is Vertical Right to Left. English horizontal Left to Right.
Hence the website content is inn “Portrait” format for CHinese sites and “Landscape” for English.
16 Tangos // May 27, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Actually, part of the reason why long front page and open in a new windows can be tracked back to low-speed Internet access age. When ppl were still using 56k modem to access Sina, they’d like to find all the headlines in one page, instead of visiting many pages to find them, so Sina put all main stories in one front page, at that time, ppl tended to click the stories that they were interested in and wait them to be opened in a new windows, at the same time, they can continue to read the page and find other links to click.
Yes, we’ve entered broad-band time, but as Robert Ness said, as Sina is the biggest portal, its front page become sort of industry standard in China, other players just follow it, users are also accustomed to it.
Ads is also an important factor for webpage design, since most of the advertisers want their ads on Sina’s front page or front page of various channel, so Sina has to make the page as long as possible.
17 Micheal // May 28, 2008 at 12:01 pm
因为中国人的人多，兴趣广，就像可口可乐在中国做生意，不能只有单一的可乐。这样的话，他们就没市场了。为了吸引更多的网民浏览，网站就必须有更多的内容，来吸引更多的人。
18 Micheal // May 28, 2008 at 12:22 pm
My English is not very well, If you are Chinese who know chinese history, you will know the answer very soon.
19 Zhang Weiwu // May 28, 2008 at 4:19 pm
HI I am native Chinese doing software development & websites. The difference can have a culture reason. The Chinese culture in particular seems prefer complex over simplicity. It has a long history.
Examples:
* The king’s dressing (it must have complex pattern on it and sometimes quality is judged by how complex it can be attached to the same area of surface).
* The bridges must have a lot of patterns and decoration on rails.
* The box of delivered goods.
I observed and thought long time why westerners prefer simplicity. It turns out (to me) that this is because westerner tries to notice, understand, consume complexity, thus more complex content stress them. On the contrary Chinese people feel, glance, ignore details. More complex content do not stress them.
A westerner read the headline because he doesn’t wish to miss something. As the time is short they reads the headline carefully and ignore content unless they “decide” to read the content. Chinese users don’t have this process, the headlines are not carefully read anyway, usually it’s “read half, complete with imagination or guessing the other half”. It’s generally easier (for me to guess) that a Chinese misread a headline than a western.
When faced complexity, Chinese people tends to replace understanding with feeling, RATHER THAN westerners having the willingness to manage that complexity and feel lost when not being able to, and gets a feeling of dislike (of the website).
To some extent you can say Chinese readers are less ignorant and less intended to search for information by themselves. But I do know a lot of Chinese readers who is not ignorant and searches, and get pissed off by Sina.
20 Please Mind The Gap: Chinese and American Site Design Concepts : techblog86 // May 28, 2008 at 7:18 pm
[...] full article has a deeper look at the “busy-ness” of Chinese sites such as Sina instead of the [...]
21 tmelcher // May 28, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Dear Tangos, Micheal, and Zhang Weiwu,
Thanks very much for your comments. It’s really great to hear from you! I’m sorry that I need to write in English, but it’s OK to write comments in Chinese if that’s easier for you.
22 cerebus // May 29, 2008 at 2:58 am
This has been fascinating. Esp. Mr Zhang’s comments. I feel like I learned more about Chinese culture from one seemingly trivial discussion, than from all the political mudslinging of the past year put together. I love the explanation about “feeling” and “glancing” to get an idea of the whole, rather than focusing on the details. Also the idea that westerners get “stressed” by complexity. The whole can be so overwhelming sometimes. I can see I’m going to spend a lot more time thinking on this topic.
Thanks
23 What do we know about 51.com’s open API and funding plans? // May 29, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] model — in his latest blog post. Also check out posts he’s recently written on Chinese Web design, and on the importance of BBS in Chinese Internet [...]
24 Design Perspectives from East Asia // May 30, 2008 at 3:50 pm
[...] turns out a lot of other people are thinking the same thing. Different theories for why there is this marked [...]
25 Cestmoi // May 30, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Indeed fascinating and intriguing subject and smart contributions, thank you all… If I summarize what I understood, as usual with humans its complex and multicausal (either economy or human body chemistry for ex.): differences come here from a mix of historical & technical aspects (low bandwidth, Sina as a model…), cultural (feeling vs. understanding, ability to grasp complexity and manage stress vs. simplicity…) and also generational (used or not to read paper), etc. (by the way, no gender differences in the West or in the East ?)…
Possibly already underlined, I think that just the use of ideograms vs. phonetical alphabets explains a lot concerning the “cultural” part; grasping or even guessing quickly a few ideas with a few funny compact “drawings” -its starts in kindergarten and keeps going all your life probably- is less stressful, than a larger page full of little alphabetical signs necessitating a longer and complex linear reading process full of traps where guessing and feeling have little room (just reminds me of a seminar on “fast reading”, was precisely all about guessing and feeling) …especially when you grew up as a universal 21st century citizen of the global little village, with video-games, TV …and simplistic flashy web-pages; so Western kids resort learning/using SMS-chat writing today in the first place to communicate, and possibly later on for the smart ones mainly bullet-points and for the smartest ones MacKinsey’s Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle (see on Amazon)…while Chinese kids on their side still have to learn patience, during 2 extra school years, in absorbing a few thousand characters (still a bit more messy, or just more human, possibly in their minds and behavior, but less stressed, than Japanese kids), etc. ; nothing new probably (Cleopatra preferred Egyptian to Greek her primary language, and she seemed quite laid-back -so many prestigious lovers- …Mr Zhang might like this one… back to our common Axial Age, where everything serious started on this little planet, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_age ). Other leads for exploring further the subject: check with international advertising agencies, they probably analyzed the subject, with examples -money available/at stake for them-, not only for the net, but for all types of ads; possibly see also people who edit the same magazine titles in various countries, ELLE for girls, FHM for boys, etc.; talk also to book publishers, and above all to lawyers (another funny but true illustration: 4-5 English executives and lawyers arguing about the strong impact of/modifying many little details -liaison words, points and commas- in an horribly complex English contract, during 2 hours; a couple of Chinese lawyers smiling -no stress- at the end of the table… “after all your little changes… we didn’t have to change a single character in Chinese… and the contract in Chinese is still half the size of yours in English” !).
26 Gert in Beijing // Jun 2, 2008 at 1:51 am
Different culure, different design values. Those cluttered sites are not my taste either - but then they are not aimed at me
It would be a mistake to think the look is just a result of poor design - but different design aesthetics.
27 Bjørn Stabell // Jun 2, 2008 at 1:18 pm
This is also something that’s puzzled me for many years. I never thought of the advertising sales model impacting it, but I’ve seen the power of advertising sales within an organization, so it makes perfect sense!
Besides this, and of course the cultural differences, I think there’s another aspect some touched on… Maturity of:
Design esthetics - What is considered of value changes over time. When scarcity is the norm, complexity seems valuable. When complexity is the norm, people try to differentiate themselves by being simpler. I think this applies to design as well.
Internet user behavior. When the internet was new, slow, and screens were small, it was important to have high information density. People weren’t used to scrolling and going back-and-forth in history, and the cost of loading a new page was high (in terms of time).
Interestingly I think the “web 2.0″ design we see today only works better because users are more savvy, have bigger screens, and faster Internet connections. It’s okay to scroll. And it’s not the number of clicks, but how ‘difficult’ those clicks are conceptually that matter.
You could list the design approaches as follows in order of increasing complexity:
* web 2.0
* web 1.0 - overseas
* web 1.0 - China
A great book on usability is Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”.
http://www.sensible.com/
28 Joe Thong // Jun 2, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I hope I’m not too late in throwing in my opinion here. I think for Chinese users, their tolerance of abundance are far greater than Westerners mainly because of the language itself. You see, Chinese text has no spacing at all whereas English (Spanish, French, German) all has spacing between words. If you look at ancient Chinese literature, they don’t have punctuation to start with!
I had a hard time adjusting to Chinese sites and newspapers when I first arrived in China even though I speak and write Chinese fluently. But to the Chinese it is what they have been accustomed to ever since the language is invented. Thus my take is they generally don’t complain about a cluttered website like Sina as westerners do.
This “theory” could even be further extrapolated to Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean websites. Websites there are as “cluttered” as websites here and their languages are stringed together just like the Chinese language.
29 Mover // Jun 6, 2008 at 10:51 am
not very bad!
30 MKT CHINA » Why do most Chinese sites look like crap? // Jun 6, 2008 at 10:54 am
[...] turns out that no one seems to know the answer. I asked Jakob Nielsen, the famous web usability expert, if he knew of any research on this topic. His simple answer: [...]
31 Why do most Chinese sites look like crap?? // Jun 12, 2008 at 4:47 pm
[...] You can find origional link here: http://www.melcherruwart.com/2008/05/26/why-do-most-chinese-sites-look-like-crap/ [...]
32 Royster // Jun 22, 2008 at 7:05 pm
This is a great discussion!
To the commenters who said Chinese prefer richness and complexity throughout its history, that is an incomplete assessment. Going back to the earlier periods of China’s history, design and asthetics were much simpler when compared with later dynasties such as the Ming and the Qing. The early Chinese periods were much more similar to the styles we now see in Japanese/Korean design.
On the other hand, during the Victorian era in British history, complexity was seen as a good thing and you will notice that designs during that period were very extravagant. So, yes, design is highly dependent on culture AND the time period (i.e. the politico-social environment).
Each culture has its high and low points in terms of design and asthetics. China may have hit a low point for the past hundred years or so, but there is ample evidence that it is improving at a rapid rate. Similarly, western designs may have hit a plateau, and may need to draw more inspiration from the East (both Far and Near) in the future.
33 Euripides // Jun 25, 2008 at 3:29 am
Highly, highly interesting discussion. Thanks for everyone’s insight, especially colleagues in China! This will actually be helpful in designing websites aimed at Chinese end-users. We had been debating whether to use the Western minimalist or Chinese cluttered methodology. Now, we know to go with the latter– but might try to Westernize the clutter, so to speak!
34 Peter Van Dijck’s Guide to Ease » Blog Archive » Cultural design misunderstandings // Jul 10, 2008 at 3:07 pm
[...] Live from Bejing: "Whenever I show Chinese websites to American friends who don’t speak Chinese, the friends universally have the same reaction — “Wow! That site sure is crappy-looking! Guess those guys haven’t learned how to design a good website yet, huh?” [...]
35 Cultural design misunderstandings at 290s global user experience blog // Jul 10, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[...] Live from Bejing: "Whenever I show Chinese websites to American friends who don’t speak Chinese, the friends universally have the same reaction — “Wow! That site sure is crappy-looking! Guess those guys haven’t learned how to design a good website yet, huh?” [...]
36 Bernhard Sturm // Jul 20, 2008 at 3:55 am
Hi!
A very interesting discussion, I am currently doing a CAS in Corporate Design dealing exactly with those questions. I will publish a book about cross-cultural issues in website navigation structures very soon. So far I used as a case study the website of Al Jazeera (www.aljazeera.net) as they offer two different navigation schemes and visual designs for their English and Arabic online services. There are various explanations why you have different visual design approaches for websites in different cultural contexts. According to Edward Hall you can identify cultural parameters that enable you to classify cultures into High Context and Low Context cultures. China is a High Context culture, where the U.S. would be an example of a typical Low Context culture. In high context cultures for instance hierarchy is important, and relationships are more on a familiar base. You will find a lot of so called parallel navigation schemes on websites of high context cultures. This is one reason why almost every link opens in a new window: this is typically ‘parallel navigation’.
I am not surprised that Jacob Nielsen is not aware of this, as he still believes that website visual design is mainly a western thing and culturally more or less disconnected from local user behaviours.
37 tmelcher // Jul 20, 2008 at 5:30 am
Bernhard,
Thanks for letting me know about your work, which sounds quite important. I visited your website, which is in German. Can you tell me more about where you are, what you’re doing, and when your research will be published?
Thanks in advance!
t
38 Bernhard Sturm // Jul 20, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Oh sorry, I have forgotten to tell you who I am, and what the background of my work actually is: I am a professional webdesigner from Switzerland, and the website is my company’s site. Currently I am doing a CAS (Certificate of Advanced Studies) in Corporate Design about multiplicity and visual identities in Amsterdam. You can find my project description (”Lost in Orientation”) amongst other projects at the programmes website: http://multiplicity.zhdk.ch/web/pages/projects.php
Cheers
Bernhard
39 Fran // Jul 30, 2008 at 12:59 am
A really interesting discussion!
There has been some related research, for example:
Can culture dictate the way we see? 04 May 2007 NewScientist.com: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11785&feedId=online-news_rss20
describes an experiment that showed older East Asian people tended not to notice changes in the foreground of pictures, presumably because they were focusing on the overall context. There wasn’t a difference between younger East Asians and Americans.
Anecdotally, Japanese people tend to like really complex navigation systems and feel that the more complicated a site is, the more valuable and information-rich it must be.
Email “mailbox icons” are often based on US mailboxes, which might not mean much to people elsewhere. Apparently, there are no traffic lights on Samoa, so red-amber-green might not mean much to Samoans!
40 VocabControl » Cultural design misunderstandings // Jul 30, 2008 at 6:47 pm
[...] really interesting discussion about the differences between Chinese and American website design on Live From Beijing (via 290s). I particularly liked the comment “Let’s avoid the trap of explaining things [...]
41 carlos // Aug 28, 2008 at 11:58 am
happen to go in this topic, it is interesting, because i just think the question, i always look one of the bigest website in china, http://www.sohu.com, a website just like sina, gerenally, i have nothing important to seach there, i look the website only for a habit, like you have to eat everyday, it is always rest time when see this website, so i just strole on there, hope something interesting attracted me. i have litter interesting to go into the second catalog, i just look at the front page, and select several seem-interesting article to view, it only spent time, so with little patient to wait the article coming out, then i just click many article, they will open at many tabs, then i could veiw them one by one , no need to wait the web open.
so is the feeling of nytimes, which is one of my mostly viewed website(because i don’t know other english popular website), i find there are so litte things that could be read on the front page, it is poor , it always confuse me, why there is always so little things there?
if fact, why does i go into this topic is because i think the nytimes is so poor, i want to find other main english website which could provide me more information on the front page just like sohu in china, i seach in google with the key words ” which website do americans usually look?” than in the first page i see this topics, hah, interesting, i don’t find what i want to find, but i got the real answer, it is very funny, so i think i might never find a popular english website just like my favourable sohu in china. what a pity.
42 Janis Spivack // Aug 29, 2008 at 1:26 am
Hi Tom,
I can’t believe I didn’t read this before. As
always your insights are engaging and thought
provoking.
I have to say I’m fascinated by this topic, because I have always admired the Chinese design aesthetic. If we look beyond initial Chinese website to other mediums- revolutionary posters as example, the graphics are bold, clean and with simple focused messaging. Art, architecture, pottery, sculpture- in general are beautifully balanced and layered, with clear emphasis placed through tone and texture- (which I’m sure has evolved over THOUSANDS of years)
As expressed by some responses, I really don’t believe there is necessarily a holy grail of web design (Sorry Jakob). I really think it’s about context and audience. The Chinese clearly understood how to get across a message to revolution. So this must be about something else.
In the case of website layouts and navigation, Western design has moved (some) website design to focus on “efficiency”. Speed. “How can I give the reader the most pertinent information fastest –because they have a choice and will leave if I don’t grab their attention QUICKLY.”
I’m not sure how competitive the online space is for the Chinese internet, but competition for eyeballs will drive design change over time. If the readers want neater layouts with topics higher up and more available, then the smart online businesses will respond. I remember clearly what the US internet looked like in the early 90’s and I know you do too. In some cases it’s taken 15 years to get to those wonderful examples you posted. I think the biggest lesson you can bring to Chinese web design is teaching them to design for “the Chinese people” rather than looking to the West for their examples.
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