As someone who grew up with 90s internet, i miss getting all the info shoved at my face. All websites now contain endless scrolling of blown up pictures.
I actually miss the old internet. I hate the endless scrolling of modern design, overly simplified options only to realize later on that the service information you are looking for isn't there! Having all the options on the menus is much easier
As a web developer who enjoys cleaner design and loathes the old school ways we used to design websites, it's making me rethink how today's design systems need to be re-balanced. I still think those Japanese websites can look kinda bland, but I do think high-context can be beneficial in some use cases, so really it's just a matter of organizing elements on a page really well.
same. it's insane how people in the comments thinking japan is lacking in innovation or something because it didn't buy into the bullshit of modern web bloat.
@@OzzyTheGiant I think that the current model, messed up our capacity of choice. The clean design nowadays looks like more distraction than the japan old "messy" design. But the japan design, actually gives us more precise information, probably wasting less time navigating.
@@wagnersouza4463 actually the opposite is true. You waste minutes trying to find information in the dense wall of text that is a standard japanese website, compared to just clicking a single button that says eg. "Contact info" on a website with good design. Modern design != less information, that is a misconception made by people who think all pieces of information are equally important.
I'm japanese, I still browse reddit using the old subdomain. Reddit is a great example why old style is better. I also feel like new designs are riddled with dark patterns.
The dark patterns are almost exclusive to western design, I 100% agree. However, I feel like they are a consequence of a sales/scammy culture, rather than of design.
@@codeawareness Not sure about that. Whenever I had to do with Chinese websites, like AliExpress or xiaomi etc, often unsubscribing or deleting an account was not possible, as if they don't accept you leaving the platform. Temu is also an example of Dark Patterns. It's basically fueling it... The equivalent in China is pin duo duo, right? Is that completely different from Temu regarding dark patterns and tricking people???
to be fair most users don't like the new reddit UI. It was made to make the site scrollable, and for selling advertisements. it was never about usability.
Here's a fun fact for you all. It's not only internet, but powerpoint presentations as well. When I was in university in Tokyo and started having weekly presentations at my lab. The number one complaint I had was why my slides were so empty. In Japanese education system there seems to be a teaching from very young age that any whitespace must not be wasted...
It’s very true. I have been to a tech conference once and one of the presentation by a Japanese Engineer is full of text, and his speech is just read the text! I’m shocked and IMHO the presentation does not go well.
I feel for you. Same thing with power point presentations in corporate Japan. When we did investment roadshows in NY, LDN, Singapore etc. all the bankers rolled their eyes or glazed over at the made-in-Japan slide decks.
when I first start working for Japanese company, i got to do some report and when there are spaces on the page, my supervisor ask me like "you leave all these spaces for soccer or what???" LOL
As Japanese, I agree with most of the points, but the biggest reason is that over 30% of the population is 65+ yo and they tend to prefer "outdated" designs. The examples in the video are targeting mainly elder people (though the cafeteria is a cafeteria in a uni). Also I want to add that the simple-looking Google is the top share in search engines and Amazon that looks almost the same as the US is the top in e-commerce in Japan.
Yeah very good point. I prefer older & info-heavy designs. Sleek interfaces make me wary of a scam or hidden sale. It's either the young or the internet-illiterate that usually prefer sleek designs. They haven't developed a healthy cynicism yet when something looks too good/pretty. In Australia many 65+ aren't tech savvy, like it sounds like Japan is, and they get scammed all the time 😢
@@TheSdog9 Good point. Those full screen video wraps followed by pages of disassembled market speak until you hit the actual useful content. If you ever do. Web pages have sadly become an afterthought in the age of apps.
@@TheSdog9 That's amazing to hear! I'm not saying good or bad, but it's definitely opposite here for me. We have such a thing as con-men who trick people into agreeing and falling for what they're pushing (whether it's an actual scam, or just a corporate meeting, or so on), who convince people by overwhelming them with nonsense information so they just agree so they don't look stupid. When I see so much information, especially when there are ads in it, I feel like they're trying to do something dishonest. Amazon for example floods the page and it's messy, but it very carefully DOES hide things and decide on what they want you to see to trick you into buying something more expensive, even though it's "info heavy". If you flood with too much information, it's easier to hide things in it, because nobody wants to go through it with a fine toothed comb, like reading some boring, long legal agreement. Like everyone just skips the EULAs, and probably worries about something bad being hidden in there. Adobe famously was recently discovered to have things in there people were not happy about, that nobody noticed for years.
Meanwhile in FINLAND - is this low/high - every house entrance floor has a big cork board with pins on wall which is officially dedicated for any house tenant to write a "heippalappu / hey note" directed anonymously - yet very publicly - to your annoying neighbour in question - as in example - "Hey YOU with your kid playing piano at 2AM - it is too late and loud and we can´t sleep - PLEASE STOP!" - now this neighbour with kid is publicly noted in house and under shameful pressure to react without knowing who is behind that hey note - it works for us Finnish people as we do not want to encounter neighbour problems face to face - peace!
I've worked with someone who did some work in China in the early 00s, and they said that people over there just liked a lot of data/information available. You're spot on with the want for trust! The western businesses would want to sign up through a website or a single sales person whereas the Chinese businesses would want to meet in person, have lunch together, show the person their business.
Good points. However, having worked in Japan in Japanese companies, I can safely say that the reason why these sites don't change is not because of the reasons you gave, but because "this is how it has always been done", and the managers are still the same old jiji who knows nothing except keeping in their lanes and the status quo.
That’s a great point from a more social POV! For future vids, I’ll look into how social culture and more macro things can impact design. Thanks for your feedback :)
I have heard the same thing from people that took job offers in Japan. They mentioned a lot of the times the more experienced developers/designers would take a role for a foreign company or move abroad since they pay a lot more when compared to the average Japanese software/design role. The working hours of foreign companies operating in Japan are also supposed to be much better than Japan's "leave until the boss leaves" approach. However, it was interesting to hear a different perspective, I'm sure they both play a role.
and rightfully so, hopefully it stay that way. the western way is to always refresh with current trends, and utility is often lost in the process. i like the Japanese way better. simplicty and to the point.
As someone who has also lived and worked in Japan in the past, I think @user-bt7vc7eh6f has nailed it on the head. When the internet first arrived in Japan, the website designers copied the way the early internet was done (very messy, with much less effort at curating information out of the noise), and have since just kept doing it that way. Meanwhile, look at early Amazon vs. today's Amazon - the Western/American companies continued to innovate whereas Japan just kept doing the same thing over and over.
I believe current western web design is NOT "innovation". Western web design is about gaining and holding your attention, rather actually helping you find the information you are seeking. That is disingenuous.
The 2 AM Piano kid example in a high context society -> you hit the wall in anger with something heavy and your neighbor understands that its probably the kid playing piano from context.
"your kid plays piano really well" would really confuse me. Is that a pass for my kid to make even more noise? Maybe the noise helps them sleep well? I live in a more straightforward language culture.
Similar to my understanding from those other vids, Japanese UI design revolves around the site being an information hub or directory, whereas much of the Western world's UI design revolves around sales funnels and a call to action - their brand of low friction is more like make the ground as slippery as possible so you can slide into giving up your information or your money before you know it, then, if you realize you fell into a ditch it's hard to get out 🗿 I like clean, artistic, or visually exciting design, but I don't like the obsession of holding your hand and running with it over clarity and user agency. I think another thing is a focus on trends and things that are new/contemporary, vs the norm of enjoying things that are familiar or traditional.
You can interpret it as trying to "trick someone into slipping into a ditch" to paraphrase, but you can also see it as an extension of the American perspective on customer service. People want you to help them get to the root of the matter quickly, present a small number of the best options that suit their needs, explain the value and high-level pros/cons in summary, and then deliver the value/solution quickly and hassle-free. This means that marketing and sales funnels (in theory) are designed to quickly hook an audience that has a problem addressed by the product/service being touted, explain the high-level value proposition as succinctly as possible, offer a small number of variations that all suit the customers needs, and provide the service quickly and seamlessly. Now... the practice doesn't always match the theory and this framework of expectations does allow for more scummy behaviors, but it does have an internal coherence that isn't explicitly malicious.
I'm not against simple design per-se, like restaurant that shows home page with nice menu where everything is one or two clicks deep. But what I despise is product page where you need to scroll like 6 vertical screens on PC just to see animated transitions between something like presentation pages with minimum information and it takes you five clicks to find specs sheets and it's impossible to find product comparison. Or menus on PC where 1920x1200 pixels is common, yet we have vertical dialogs with big text, checkboxes and scroll bar instead of three columns like in Windows 95 to Windows 7 times (or 1995 to 2005). Windows 11 settings are absolute mess: random recommended settings, cloud storage usage, recovery, background, get office. Rest hidden behind hamburger menu.
@@franzwollang right, I can appreciate the solution-oriented design and onboarding, and it better serves branding and cool presentation, but it's only applied in one direction insofar as to get your money and/or data. Try to cancel or opt out of something and you might find it's buried under multiple menus or has hidden fees, if the option exists. I guess that's what the video meant about the need for "no surprises" in JP culture (ironic with the gambling culture tbh), and it's a bit better now after EU compliance went hard, I guess.
Very interesting. I am a backend software engineer and listening to this new information makes me realize UI/UX is a lot of work and research, it isnt just creating an interface for the user, it is so much more!
It's the same concept if you ever work in Japanese manufacturing companies. Compress as much as visible information as possible in one page/slide so you can easily print and share High contrast and opaque background colours on top of white page to distinguish information Use general colour codes red = NG, yellow = warning, green = OK, blue = instruction Reduce "muda" waste. Any space that is unused or work that is low impact is considered as waste. Example, scrolling 2-3 pages or multiple clicks instead of one is a waste.
Didi's information rich approach looks so useful. With Uber everything looks minimal and simple but when your ride falls through you're left with no context about what just happened
@@phoebeyutbt I think they err on the side of hiding "extraneous" information. But it's difficult to know whether it's realistic to hope for a ride at all until you try a bunch of times and fail and then give up. Up until that point, there's no accurate information about whether there are actually real cars in the vicinity
One thing though is that I'm pretty sure Uber/Lyft don't allow you to pick a driver to avoid discrimination. They don't want riders avoiding drivers based on race or gender.
Modern "minimalistic UI" is a disease brought to us be the insane-a-trons at Silicon Valley. Style over substance is never a good thing, except for items which purpose is style. Like vases, or picture frames. It's also patronising the user, by hiding options, data, info, anything the creator wants, from the user and only shows them what they *want* us to see.
I prefer the original internet design to the stuff we have today. Now they try to make a basic, informational page into some kind of work of art. Practicality is king IMO.
There's so much extra fluff and negative space that just wastes time too. Making you scroll and scroll with just information padding of a few words here and there. They've given themselves confirmation bias that if a person stays on their site longer, it means it is better. So they make you waste your time instead of having it all obvious and direct.
While I agree, I'm much less offended by the presentation as by the sheer absence of data. Even in a technical career, when I download papers that are meant to describe the functionality and capability of devices, so much of it is pure marketing fluff that has no value and doesn't provide and useful information at all. Brevity is itself an art. (Not one I always excel at, myself.) The best advice I ever got from a prospective employer was a critique on my resume (CV): Drop the sentence form from the skills section, and put them in a grid of bulleted phrases at the top of the page. I was briefly skeptical, but tried it, and was instantly won over. Exactly what one would need to know, in the easiest possible way to consume. Perfect.
Really interesting video, thank you! I have been thinking about this myself often since I was a kid essentially. As a Scandinavian native who speaks Japanese, already the process of learning the language teaches you so much about their culture and highlights the differences. Funnty enough Japan has both aspects "absolute visual overload" as well as "minimalism" baked into their culture and often they show up side by side which makes a particularly interesting contrast (example downtown alleys with 1000 boards and lights and blinking things yet suddenly a wooden section on a building with a simple minimalist design made from dark wood in the slick and beautiful old Japanese tradition. Maybe a little black and white lantern with a few Kanji and that's it. It lives in perfect harmony with the blinking mayhem around it. Thats one of the many things that makes Japan an endless source of interest and joy to me. On a side note, that short 4min talk by "Erin Meyer" that you linked and used snippets of, about high and low context societies is phenomenal and worth watching every second.
To my taste, this was a 10 out of 10 for - actually answering the question (= the opposite of clickbait). To the extent it is possible to answer any question in demand of a complex answer. - clarity - teaching me something new, and - entertaining and enjoyable to watch
@@phoebeyutbt I have one critique: Keep an eye on the volume of your sound effects. They're louder than your dialog -- so much so, that your post-processing is actually ducking your dialog level to accommodate the loud effects without clipping the audio. You're sacrificing intelligibility in those brief moments for something that is more distracting than helpful. Consider prioritizing subtlety. Other than that, I found this to be an exceptional video. There were a few fascinating revelations that left me exhilarated -- particularly learning that an innate feeling of low-grade anxiety I have in social situations (wanting to avoid inconveniencing others) is inherent to a whole culture. Perhaps that is part of why I felt relatively comfortable visiting Japan, despite not knowing the language or the customs. I think I just share some of those fundamental social values, so it feels familiar and accessible to me despite being a foreigner. Did I expect to learn something about my own psychology when clicking on a video of "why does Japanese Yahoo look like it did in 2001?" No, I did not. You have a gift for insight, and skillful research, that makes me genuinely hopeful that you continue to contribute to this platform. It needs you.
I’m not sure about innovation in Japan, but it seems to me that it’s not just that they prioritize hardware over software. I recently went to visit friends (they live in Osaka) and was amazed at how much technology there is from the 2000s and even the 90s. I saw several stores with CDs; our Japanese friends, whom we visited, had a VHS player at home. Friends told me that government agencies still use floppy disks(!). For example, in Russia we haven’t had all this for a long time. Unless it’s stored in someone’s attic, but not used on a daily basis.
@@HermanWillems or they are getting much more worth out of what they spent already, make the switch to the new thing when there is actual benefit from it, rather than just being obligated to spend a budget, because if you don't - someone will replace you who will spend it
Мои друзья заканчивали омский государственный университет несколько лет назад, им сказали принести копию их выпускной работы для архива на дискете. в моем универе тоже просили приносить курсовые на дисках. в обычных домах и семьях в россии тоже полно пузатых телевизоров из 2000х, домашних телефонов и т.д. так что не надо утверждать так уж однозначно)
For me, the more information overload happens right in my face, I actually call it clutter, the fewer I trust in a website, because I always have to assume this is a method of deception to distract me from the essential. I prefer clean minimalistic websites which have a good architecture, where I see only few essential bits of information on the first glance and I am able to dig deeper if I want to. The information should not be missing, but it should be put away in a logical menu or folder structure.
i am so glad to stumble upon this video of yours! As a design student/geek since forever, i'm afraid that with doing work, i have started to lose interest in design and how fun and interesting it is. Watching your video reminded me of so much fun knowledge that is included in design, whether is culture, history, or even just the demographic. I am so happy to see you in my home page! Love the intersection of design, psychology and history! 💗✨
At some point I realized the differences of culture are deeply rooted in the linguistic differences and seemingly begin there. Human relations and social norms only being capable through thought, expressed in one's language, with its own unique rhythm, vocabulary, concepts. I mean you notice generally that peoples of separate but related languages share more in common culturally (e.g. romance, slavic, etc.) and that's true for everyone everywhere lol, so like take the two opposite poles of the hemisphere and read it from East Asia to the British Isles to North America. It's the North-South dynamic that really shakes things up tho. Besides the point. I only thought this because of you saying east Asians are on average better at navigating complex info, which I agree with, bc of how much nuance is built into the Chinese writing system itself and its interaction with the indigenous/foreign Korean and Japanese languages. It seems like in the US people prefer things more direct and stated directly, which is totally a function of the language. At its base English is germanic, so its gon be quite direct.
Japanese web design is definitely an interesting topic. I've been working as a web developer and designer for a Japanese marketing company in Japan for almost a decade, and there is certainly an expectation of what content is available on the first page. Also, there has definitely been a shift in design and web technology over the past few years. We've been building many 採用 (recruitment) sub-sites for big companies, and the focus on these sites is generally clean and modern design, even though the main sites are still almost unchanged from 10-15 years ago. And don't get me started on high friction UX, especially with contact forms...
High fiction is so that people already drop out before even applying. The same is with tax and pension return. They make it difficult by default so that people don't bother and leave the money to the government. But old websites, in Japan everything has to be legacy and backwards compatible. Just look at power outlets. GND cable hanging out? Are you for real? Just upgrade to 3 pin plug. Force people to make changes for better!
I wonder if autistic people have an even harder time in a high context culture. I'm not autistic, and I would still appreciate someone being direct rather than telling me my kid is good at the piano.
Ooh fair point! Curious to see how people with different disabilities/abilities function in different cultures. Do you think they are provided accommodations the same way like in low context cultures?
I think my country (India) is in middle of the two ends you talked about. People are loud-mouthed and won't bother causing some "trouble" to other people. But, at the same time, they will use nuanced language to communicate stuff - it's almost never direct. Convenience for us is about speed but most people don't value convenience as much as cost-effectiveness. They need tons of information/context before making a decision, esp involving money. Usually, complicated designs don't trouble users here - banking websites, shopping websites, government website are all "outdated". Yet, the newer apps are minimal and sleek and that is because they don't have to cater to old people (that are used to seeing things in a certain way) and the only people who use them have suddenly come online. For most people, their first ever "computer" was a smartphone. Many haven't seen a computer at all. So, they are not used to the ways of archaic designs and hence can work with more minimal designs now. I think it's a weird mix - "Japanese-style" banking website and "American-style" food delivery apps!
Culture differences are fascinating. With India we found a tendency to ask for "your best price" when ordering, this is with prices at say $299. We thought this was a bartering proclivity, but we tried increasing prices to a more odd number and unexpectedly far fewer asked for discounts and just accepted the price. We also find a high level of urgency (maybe your "trouble" and "speed" reference) in requests, and despite a good proficiency in English, there's a greater demand to be "fed" information that's readily available than for most other regions. Of course other countries have their quirks too.
@@makers_lab Great points! However, the English proficiency stat is skewed. Most people can speak and understand English, but only in bits. Most people need to be "fed" information because either they don't have the confidence they got it correctly by reading or because they want a "off-screen" confirmation (maybe talking to a rep since everything used to be offline) to make a decision online. Things are changing now.
I'm not completely sure I understand the anecdote about the Japanese keyboard. As someone who's been learning Japanese for a while, I'm actually actively using that type of keyboard and in my opinion it is a very smart design that neatly fits the characteristics of the Japanese language and I'd argue makes you type less than a qwerty keyboard would. Here's what I mean: Japanese doesn't really have the sorts of consonant clusters you might find in some European languages, but instead every "syllable" consists of one (or no) consonant followed by a vowel. And there are only 5 vowel sounds in Japanese: a i u e o. So you're pretty much guaranteed to always be following up every consonant by one these vowels. Which means that if you have a system in which you either tap one of the consonant buttons or flick it in one of the four cardinal directions, you have taken care of all the possible combinations of (consonant) + (vowel). Basically this: む みまめ も is the same as this: mu mi ma me mo So in the end you would need the same amount of taps as in qwerty (one for the consonant group and then one for the vowel), but now the distance that your finger travels is shortened (since the vowel variants pop up around the initially selected character). But that's not all! Written Japanese doesn't have distinct characters for differentiating voiced vs unvoiced consonants (for example g vs k), but instead has a marking on the same character to indicate voicedness (compare か vs が or す vs ず). So they also made a button for that. All of this means that they have way fewer buttons on their keyboard, which in turn means the keys/buttons can be made bigger relative to qwerty keys. And bigger buttons means less of a chance of mistyping and having to correct yourself. So in the end, what confuses me about this example is that it seems that in direct comparison with the qwerty keyboard, the design principles are flipped. The qwerty one is the one that has all the available choices upfront and crams it all into a tight space while the Japanese keyboard prioritizes ergonomics and frictionless UX (typos are certain to cause friction, I'd argue). Because it should be noted that Japanese would also work with a qwerty keyboard (as it does on a desktop PC), so this design isn't really born out of necessity.
Thanks for asking the question, that puzzled me too. (Also, I have been learning Japanese for a while and I felt inordinately proud that I could follow the description of the writing system! I might be getting somewhere... 🤣)And thanks to @Beerftw for the clarification.
@@alfastur6833 Basically like autocorrect. You have a bar on top with suggestions for the kanji that fit what you just wrote and then you tap on the one you want. It actually works like this for Chinese as well (which usually just uses a qwerty keyboard as the base)
Really like how you include opinion from practitioner with high context on Japanese tech field like Mayuko and Riccardo, the information makes your content even more relevant.
@@LongWaster It's not straightforward at all. It's a system of NOT saying what is meant, and the other person is supposed to GUESS at what it meant based on context. That is literally the opposite of simple and straightforward. It's actually borderline toxic - making people guess what you want and then shaming them when they get it wrong is kind of basics of emotional abuse, lol.
Today I learned that I have a Japanese mindset regarding the websites, even if I am Italian, never been in Japan. 🙂 I prefer explicit information because I feel that if you are not telling me something, you have a reason to hide it. Very nice video, thank you!
Instant subscribe! You have such a gentle and digestible way of describing things, this video felt like a journey and everything made sense in the end. Blows my mind that it's from a small new CZcams account. Really looking forward to seeing more from you!
as someone who loves 90s-2000s web design i wish more websites looked like this, i still use old website versions/extensions like old reddit and youtube redux when i can..
The thing is there are some aspects of Japanese web design for which there is no possible argument that it's intentional/thoughtful design rather than technical incompetence. In particular, the presentation of textual data as images is still way more common in Japan than other countries with no alt/aria tags. It's completely inaccessible to people with visual disabilities, can't be indexed by search engines, doesn't adapt well to different device form factors and isn't easily machine translatable. The only reason to make a website this way is lack of knowledge of web fundamentals to achieve the same design with native DOM. All operating systems and browsers have long had comprehensive UTF-8 support.
I've lived in China for half a decade and indeed most things are designed so that every inch of space is filled with details and information, while other things may take an opposite approach, and be extremely minimalistic. I agree with what's said in the video. I also feel that the culture here just tends to fall into extremes in all aspects of human existence. But it's just a generalization that I have never observed or studied. I would say that for the most part, the designs have organically evolved to look like that because of the common culture of conformity and copying (which is encouraged). For example, whenever we are designing a new product here, the management suggests "let's do it like a company X" does that. About the choices given in apps, like different types of rides, and dozens of assortments of a product on Taobao, it may seem at first like a luxury, but now I find myself dreading shopping for anything because choosing from among so many options is mentally exhausting. Not to mention that such complexity invites room for a lot of mistakes.
Yikes. Plagiarism as built into the culture. Creativity not rewarded, just be the same as everyone else and don't be different because we like conformity. Soul destroying.
I will say. Being very illustrative with food is something I wish the US would borrow from Japan (among other things) Gosh I’m so indecisive, every time I’m living in Japan I appreciate having food replicas in the outside windows to see how the food looks and what everything is. I’m a full time web developer and I did look into this once. It’s so interesting. The intersection of culture , mind , and technology in general is interesting. Thank you for the video. Edit:oh the high context thing is sooo true haha. I’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t live there but I’ve spent enough time. When the chef mentions how nice it is that I seem to be so appreciative of the food and how much I’m savoring it I know he wants me to hurry up already cuz I’ve been there a while hahahaha
Super interesting! Being in web dev for 15 years now I never thought of what's being considered "convenient" in regards of web design might actually differ in different cultures. It's always a surprise to figure out how much actually goes under "localization". Thanks a lot for expanding my horizon!
can we agree that "high context communication" is a nightmare though... when people are secretly mad at you for not doing something they never actually told you they wanted you to do, because you were supposed to read their "signals". JUST TELL ME!
Less uncertainty? They literally throw so much info at you it's impossible to process it all and you'll actively find different stuff about the same subject page to page
Yeah I don't agree. As ND, I find this design offensive, looks cheap and untrustworthy like a scam website, and far to busy to identify the important information. HAte it.
What an enlightening video - thank you for this research and views! I also loved your pace of delivery, it was not rushed like many other youtubers where they speak with lightning speed, being afraid that the viewer will lose interest.
Japanese software developer here. There's another factor here, which maybe is related to the point about higher information density: Japan has a lot of dense, pedestrian-first cities, which means people are constantly interacting with each other. It's not like in North America, where you meet your family at home, go to work and meet your coworkers there, and then go home again. Even if it's just to avoid bumping into someone else at the station, you're talking pretty frequently. You get used to going out of your way to avoid stepping on each other's toes, both literally and figuratively. Also, culturally, Japan's had an Internet before the Internet, just that the network layer buffered data on the order of hours as opposed to milliseconds, because information would get passed around by foot. Sneakernet was real. That's kind of why Japanese TV is so weird: even celebrities have had to be down-to-earth to be accepted, so the production value and pace of iteration has always been closer to what it is on CZcams nowadays -- minus the sheer number of channels that allows a lot of CZcams to end up being actually good. It's also why software and IT in general is so second class in Japan: there just hasn't been as much of a need. I still find that, even with all its flaws, the convenience of, say, Tokyo, more than makes up for the convenience of online services here in Vancouver. At the same time, I found it sad when, for example, around ten years ago, I asked why my friend needed a PSP, a phone, an mp3 player _and_ a watch, when all I had was an iPhone 3. His baffling answer: "What if the battery runs out?" So yeah, we fell behind, and now I fear that a lot of organizations in Japan are making a ton of mistakes in its frantic rush to catch up.
I regularly forget to charge my phone. The battery running out is a *real* issue, and the more critical services are specifically tied to phones, the more of an accessibility issue that's going to become.
I love this comment "Also, culturally, Japan's had an Internet before the Internet, just that the network layer buffered data on the order of hours as opposed to milliseconds, because information would get passed around by foot."
@christianknuchel Also regarding losing my phone, I am paranoid about putting an e-wallet on it, rightly or wrongly. I like to keep my money separate. Just like I prefer not to have my CC info saved on a website -- though that is hard when you have to create an account just check out.
Great video! As a guy from the USA living in America I feel like there are areas where we are more high context than Colombians. But on the whole they are more high context than we are. For example a Colombian rarely will tell you “no.” On the other hand, if you’re trying to tell a Colombian neighbor or relative it’s time to leave or go home, you can’t just say “I’m getting sleepy.” You literally have to say “OK. I’m going to bed now. I need you to leave”
Finally, a channel that explains something I am interested in without going "off-topic" from the thumbnail....I hope your channel becomes successful. Thank you for keeping it to the point, being unique in your delivery, and interesting.
4:59 Excellent video and appreciate the research that went into this. Never knew the various social and cultural impacts on UI design. Thanks for sharing
'Kinda funky' is a nice way of putting it 😆. Ultimately this has more to do with unwillingness to change than any of the other stuff you mentioned. The unwillingness to change probably has partly due to the fact that Japan has a massive elderly population and also guess who calls the shots at all these companies? The old geezers are the ones at the top and decisions largely come down to an age based hierarchy. Also, the menu example doesn't really hold up that well either. Lots of menus have tons of pictures (which is fantastic btw), but some of the most 'Japanese' restaurants and izakaya's I've been to have no pictures whatsoever (and lots of kanji) with no additional descriptions or anything.
i wouldn't care so much if they just looked ugly by modern UI/UX standards re: information overload. But they're so so so commonly just not functional. They're slow, confusing to use, and often time rely on hardcoded input options. If you try to do something outside the predicted or standard inputs, you're out of luck. Especially with names: If you don't have a kanji name, it can be very hard to input in anything. Plus if you live outside of Japan, many Japanese websites become unusable.
I'm not sure it is ideal to think of western design as "clean, simple" + "modern". Many things can be modern that don't meet the western expectation of "clean" and "simple". Complex design can also be modern.
Phoebe, this is really interesting. It got me thinking about communications and the way we consume all kinds of information and entertainment. The pacing of movies could be a good example, too. Great job!
Great video. I would say this: In a world where more and more people are becoming content creators, this generates a level of noise that is (much more) favorable to "low content" cultures and societies. Meaning that while some societies might culturally wish for more nuance, life will become literally unbearable with it (your field of knowledge/work will become more and more complex, a base-level professional in your field will need to read an impossible number of articles/books just to earn a reasonably good salary, and people will be on edge all the time with information, misinformation and disinformation). This is already happening today and will just keep getting worse. Low content will become more prevalent, regardless of cultural pressure to the contrary.
I'm 54, white, of European lineage, born and raised in America by a family with roots here back to the 18th century, so I should not really relate to the Japanese design philosophy here, but I LOVE this! I was raised to do my best not to offend or hurt others, because why is offending or hurting others EVER good? Some of the commenters below were apparently raised in households where hurting and offending others was a benefit. That's sad, but it's a comment on a large part of the American population I'm afraid. I admire the Japanese culture for their ingrained system of honor and respect. I love these over-complicated websites because it does give me ALL of the information. It reminds me of how American advertising USED to be back in the '70's and back. One modern example that's actually American is to look at the popular product "PB Blaster", which is a penetrating oil product. The can is a standard spray can, a' la WD-40, but it's COVERED in descriptions, instructions, etc. It looks to my eye like something from the '60's...but once you've examined all of it you KNOW what you're getting. I think that this is exactly the appeal of the Temu website, and others like it. I'm an auto parts salesman, and this phenomenon reminds me of a company called Regal Tools. Instead of hanging their products neatly on your store walls, they supply a large table "bin", into which the many types of tools are simply piled up. People LOVE rooting through what looks like a bargain bin to find that surprise "tool I always needed", and you would be amazed how much this psychological maneuver sells. It's the same reason kids love the idea of a pirate map leading you to buried treasure. The hunt. The unknown reward at the end. There's something for everyone with this sort of format, and the fact that you have to dig for it implies that others are missing the treasure YOU found. It scratches an itch that a lot of people never realize they have.
I honestly prefer old UI, there's reason why I use Reddit old style for example, or avoid using software with stupid "modern" UI that takes more clicks to get things done and opt for "old UI" alternative... too many modern UI designs are in fact, INCONVENIENCE. Those designers are often too occupied with showing off rather than ensure user can get things done fast & easy.
the menu example was awesome. I personally hate the norm of US restaurants opting for minimal pictures. I don't go out to eat often, I would want to know exactly what to expect. I remember watching an episode of Kitchen Nightmares and Gordon Ramsey dug into the owner for slapping pictures all over the menu and it made me want to tear my hair out.
Growing up in Japan, I can tell you first hand that "taijin kyofusho" is an utterly demoralizing part of Japanese culture and society and one of the main drivers behind Japanese people searching for ways out of Japan. It basically teaches you to cancel yourself in deference to others, but without fully recognizing who or what the self or the other is. And it's not taught in an overtly explicated way, it's incremental, starting in pre-school with behavioral structures in public institutions (positioning objects, mapping lines and boundaries etc.). People often say to me, "who the f are you to judge thousands of years of culture?" To which I say, I am an individual who thinks that sometimes cultures can get it wrong and this is one of the those times. I moved to the US when I was 20 for study abroad in uni, and I didn't go back.
There's a similar (but much less severe, especially with all recent immigration) problem in Sweden. A lot of untold rules of what is good or not good to do, the high context communication explained in the video everywhere. Basically only people who were born in Sweden and lived abroad for some time understand how messed up it is. Many others think this is the only correct way to do things and don't understand why immigrants don't understand their signs. (Fun fact: "enryo no Katamari" is also a thing here)
I would love to watch a video where you analyze a Japanese website in detail. What are the design principles? How do they decide which information to put on the front page? Do users of Japanese websites behave in a different way? Fewer clicks? More Scrolling? More or less time on site?
For someone who speaks Japanese as a 3rd foreign language, I want to poke my eyes out every time I visit Japanese websites. Especially when you look for a simple definition of something and all you find is a blog with a crooked design and 9000 lines of introductory, useless info that everyone knows already. Way too much prelude. Just like in Japanese business mail.
Interesting video! Also; no one will ever convince me that giving a backhanded compliment instead of directly saying what you need is any form of good communication. Great websites; awful interpersonal communication.
I was like, why do I felt like I've seen you IRL, and it turns out you're a Vandy student! Thumbs up to these highly professional videos, and good luck to your future endeavors.
no clue what the keyboard example was trying to illustrate. It's not "Gentle UX", it's two things: 1. People got used to typing on flick-type keyboards because old Nokia phones used the exact same format (minus the flicking). Many older people still type by tapping the buttons instead of flicking 2. It is simply much much easier and faster to type Japanese with flick due to its alphabet system Feels like this video is just not that well-researched
Ok well that food menu is awesome...so many times I've ordered something in Canada and wasn't what I thought because not everything has pictures or if they do those pictures not always accurate.
That was very insightful and nice c= thanks Phoebe x3 something I noticed as well from experience and I think worth pointing out is that, some ways of thinking put more importance in one's sense of being and who they are through their actual, and projected intent more than materialistic result as a measure, and I think this philosophical context tends to get overlooked especially when analyzed from a more materialistic, material result-based framework which seems to be heavily influenced by culture For example, the segment showing a UX designer's perspective of the cultural difference talks about aversion to cause inconvenience to others, but even so they view it or at least talked about it in their writing from the lens of one's personal measure of convenience, that is a characterization that while functionally speaking is accurate, if we just observe and analyze things from a materialistic result standpoint, but I think it misses the wider context of and the intent behind why that is the case In Phoebe's own example of the child playing music loudly during the night we can kind of see that implicit difference too, "to be nice" is not simply a different way to achieve a material goal, but is the whole point or a large part of it because it reflects one's intent in being and expressing who they are, in a way it can be seen as one's control of who they are through how they choose to do and react to things more than it being measured by materialistic measures I have a personal difficulty with this difference as well, one of my best friends seems to be more used to explicit ways of communicating, missing that what's implied or inferred through communications and how we say things are also as important, which can be a problem especially when we interact with our wider friends group, but I'm sure they'll eventually understand x3 ♥ Thanks again Phoebe c= I might show this video to my friend too
The real answer: to cater to old people who make up a lot of the $$$ Most young Japanese people I talk to prefer the sleeker minimalistic western designs of websites. I also find some software decisions of Japanese firms to be objectively bad. For example: A form with 20 inputs. Made a mistake in one? Start from the beginning. The is objectively bad design.
Probably because soon they will be like the west and function like they have ADHD all the time. I work IT and it’s so frustrating getting the 20’s some to RTFM. Talk about having a generation hyperactive stress out adults.
@@MrDecessus You are trying to justify high friction, bad onboarding with ADHD. In reality an app should only require the bare minimum info for a given functionality, not require sensitive personal data, and for the love of god better form validation as in validation on blur not on submit. Specially after filling 20+ fields and no highlight of which input is wrong.
This is so thought provoking! I studied abroad in Japan as well and always loved how much advertisting, menus, maps, and information eased my mind with the surplus of information, but online I found myself stressed at the overload of info. I never once thought of why that amount of info could equal convenience for Japanese people, it makes so much sense now that you've explained it. Wonderful vid!
This is a super-great video. I have realized that my wife is a high-context person and I am a much less low-context person. So it's important to her to get a lot more details about things, which used to make me impatient. But now I understand things and it makes it much easier for us. Thanks for sharing this insight!
Super well done video. I'm still not convinced it's intentional to have so much information on the screen, but you do make a lot of good points. I've made a bunch of software and websites, and I'm very opinionated about web design I guess... But these points that you made will probably be on repeat in my head for a few years lol
People are overthinking all of this. How the japanese internet looks today is exactly how the American internet looked 30 years ago, which makes complete sense considering the country has the oldest population in the world, and is generally quite conservative. It doesn't take a degree to understand.
Rakuten(big e-commerce in japan) had done AB test that simple design vs horrible design. horrible site design had better result. (at least for their customer) that's why they are like that and personaly i hate those.
stumbled upon this vid, enjoyed it enough to sub! About the iphone JP keyboard (as others have already pointed out) that's just a natural way to organize things, as that is the order the "kana" are written a i u e o ka ki ku ke ko sa shi su se so and so on, it's just how a JP speaker would "think" when given a visual representation of the kana like the mobile KB, they can quickly discern all the "K" sounds are "under" the "ka" character. which leads me to a suggestion that you look at UI/UX of JP and eastern designed videogames originally meant for far east market, vs videogames of the US. Quite a lot of design differences to unpack and compare there as well, and also how some games localize well in other markets vs those that are not anyhoo looking forward to more vids!
I completely agree with a lot of your points but I have some pretty hard pushback, too. I've been there twice and I'm a software engineer with a fair amount of experience in this space. I think the Amazon/Didi examples you provided are actually great examples of intuitive and cohesive software design, and not what people frequently complain about. Those applications are very different from many traditional Japanese websites in your first examples. Japan's mobile application experiences are great, but it's also because mobile development, most of the time, is much more rigid with rules and the components you're allowed to use to build applications out of the box. Mobile development is much more recent than web development, and user experience is baked into most mobile application frameworks at some level because of the smartphone interface, essentially forcing a better ground floor level for user experience than a lot of web applications designed for a laptop, for example. These mobile applications are incredibly similar to US-counterpart mobile applications like Amazon and Uber and follow a lot of the same user experience rules. While I agree that high context and high information availability are incredibly valuable to Japan, the 'designs and layouts' of some of your first examples in isolation (not how much information they carry) are seriously outdated in more than one way. Older layouts like these can fatigue a user physically (think blue light levels), negatively impact performance (outdated web components that unnecessarily server-render), and create security concerns in some cases (if a website's design and layout isn't touched in 10 years, I don't trust it). Chaotic layouts can lead to a large number of competing interests within your own platform. This can introduce physical fatigue in users as well as indecision, sometimes called "analysis paralysis." This then increases the need for more information because you still haven't decided, and it becomes a vicious cycle. The trade-off of more clutter in Japanese web applications means you actually share less about each individual thing on the screen, and I feel like there's a much better way to do "high information" that sticks to Japanese values. Which one would a Japanese citizen actually trust and engage with more? Less peripheral clutter and more information (this is possible), or more clutter with less information on each item? It's a valid question. Think of a Tabloid newspaper trying to hope one thing sticks out to you, versus a newspaper with a cohesive design that wants you to read it for a while. Both have high information but the less cluttered one actually has more information per thing you see. Which one do you trust? While less might be more in the USA in terms of information on some types of our websites, it's very possible to achieve high-information design more intuitively and aesthetically to reduce stress and increase trust. Using softer shades, smooth transitions, and having a cohesive user experience is better than having choppy designs that often have wildly different and unpredictable styles of interactivity plugged next to each other. I've seen so many bad plugins on Japanese websites that behave completely unlike anything else on the same site. In contrast, there are several examples of high-information web applications in the USA with high levels of trust in similar ways to Japan. Really well-done auto manufacturer websites have high information availability along with a calmer and more cohesive design because a high level of information and transparency is needed when deciding what vehicle you want to buy. They also focus on mobile responsiveness to make it easy to navigate for all users, regardless of platform. A stable system that is predictable and cohesive in design also communicates trust. You can tell when you're on a website that takes a lot of time and effort. And you can tell when you're not. There is a massive amount of room for improvement while also respecting a "high information" and "high context" culture like Japan. The real argument, for me, is that Japan is just "used to using sites like this and seeing colors like that," specifically a lot of the older generation. They are ok with the quirks as long as it does what they want. As a result, that's where a lot of their trust is because "if it isn't broken, why fix it?" Well, unfortunately, using a lot of their sites as a professional, I can attest that there is a lot of broken functionality in a lot of these traditional Japanese websites. Japan's also not a culture full of complainers. It has its pros and cons. From what I've gathered, a Japanese citizen on average would tend to assume they've made a mistake and would rather avoid the discomfort of suggesting that a website has a bug through an email. They'll just use something else or go about what they need to do a different way. This doesn't exactly help quality control. All it will take, in my opinion, is a big company or two to start redesigning calmer, cohesive user experiences with just as much information, and their web design will evolve. And, I can't say this enough, mobile applications in Japan are a massive leap from many of their traditional web applications, technically and aesthetically.
Asian culture - do what you're told and just repeat what other people did. Don't you dare question anything, especially old people or your boss, even if they are wrong. Western culture - don't copy people, develop your own self, and be independent, try something new. Americans - make money. At all costs.
I'll be proud to say "hey, youtube recommended this channel to me when she had just 8 videos, I'm here from the beggining" hahaha grretings from Brazil, great content.
Modern web/UI design is an insane swamp of terrible ideas, much of which seems to be based on the simple question of "How can we waste as much space as humanly possible?". I actually like what these Japanese sites look like.
NOW I totally understand why my driver's license translation, the registration of my drone AND my e-Sim looked so complicated at first, while being so quick, smart and efficient... and using their brain power so differently probably explains as well why japanese products are so well made and people seem so smart. thx for the great enlightment. As a forrmer communication trainer in Europe and now trying my life in Japan, I must admit that the differences are FASCINATING.
Japan isn't as technologically advanced as you think. Companies are very resistant to change and new ideas, especially from young people. They still use fax machines, floppy disks, and rubber stamps. It isn't high context - it's just bad.outdated website design.
"very resistant to change and new ideas, especially from young people". New ideas dont mean good ideas. Or do you actually think the western internet is in a good spot right now?
Japan is still stuck in the 90s. Just look at their music (rock?), hair (lots of hair spray), and technology (fax machines) They still use faxes for official purposes. And, it was only recently that their banks allowed customers to open accounts via their mobile devices without having to visit a branch. Oh, and most of the restaurants are cash only. Cash only!!!😂
@@BillyBlaze6907 lol. Germany still uses fax machines? Shouldn't the Euro ban them or something? And cash only? Most Japanese eateries use kiosks for orders, and those only take cash.
@@iu2 Yes, German municipal administration is still heavily relying on physical documents, fax machines and printers. Also, it is still very common here to not be able to pay by card. Germans have traditionally been very skeptical towards new technology with regard to privacy and security. Our politicians completely missed the digital transformation.
@@BillyBlaze6907 OMG. lol. I watch these videos made by this German girl who is soon-to-be-married to a Korean guy, and she never mentioned anything about faxes and cash-only. I will have to ask her.
If you look far away from mainstream Japan has awesome music. I especially love the 70s jazz stuff that came out of Japan. And of course the hair metal (ok more rock) stuff like x-Japan. But then this is going back in the past a little bit.
Super interesting. As someone who builds web applications; I watched this from a professional curiosity, but I learned much more. I have an uncle who was conducting business with Japanese companies during most of his career, and he has some interesting stories from his career. Your explanation of "low-context" vs. "high-context" suddenly made those stories make sense. E.g. how they had to interpret the communication; I guess it was really about understanding the relevant context for the message.
Thank you. This was very helpful. As an American software engineer, I find Japanese web sites slow, cluttered and clunky. Your video explains the psychology behind it. Although, I think there is still much room for improvement.
Having done some UX work in the US, I’m not sure I buy the argument-with regard to _people in the US,_ not Japan. Even if people in the US are lower on “uncertainty avoidance” 1:51, _no_ user I ever tested liked _any_ uncertainty in a web site design-they _always_ wanted to _know_ if they clicked a link or a button, where it would take them or what consequences it would have and disliked it if they were at all unsure about it. (And it might be, as a side note, that people in the US might _prefer_ information-rich displays, such as image-laden menus in Japan 2:37, too-it’s just that, as is typical in the US, the consumer experience is “suboptimized,” both as a cost-saving measure and because it’s consistent with the US cultural value of “it’s good enough” or what might be called “satisficing.”) The _other_ issue is that it is not clear to me from the video if the cluttered, 1990s version of the Yahoo! site in Japan reduces “uncertainty,” or if some Japanese user would feel more “uncertain” using a localized version of the US site and, if so, why, as opposed to, say, just preferring the Japanese site because it’s what they’re used to. (Having a menu of country names by letter A, B, etc. doesn’t make me any less certain of what I will get if I click a letter as opposed to, say, having all the names listed from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Users in Japan might _prefer_ more items at the top level but it doesn’t mean they’re “uncertain” if they _don’t_ get that.)
Loved this video, definitely learned something new here! I am a UX/UI designer in North America and probably will never design for a Japanese audience but still very fascinating. The comments section is disappointing though, it's like most people just completely missed the point of the "cultural nuance" part of your video and are just saying "I prefer is this way and other people are stupid/naive for liking it the other way" smh. I never learn my lesson and expect too much from YT comments every time lol.
I think pretending that we can't judge things is silly. There might be valid reasons that Japan does webdesign in an archaic and unusable way. That doesn't mean it's a good way. Stop pretending all cultures are equal at everything.
"Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980"
Japan is getting close to the year 2000, and they had already started ditching floppy discs.
yep, south korea is pretty much superior now
This is one of the best description of Japan I have seen in a while.
Japan has never been in 2000.
and it has remained there.
As someone who grew up with 90s internet, i miss getting all the info shoved at my face. All websites now contain endless scrolling of blown up pictures.
I also prefer the format of Japanese menus.
This is very true. Massive pictures with a side order of relevant information. I miss text blocks.
@@alexanderfreeman I even like menus, we don't have physical menus anymore
Yes i also miss those websites...nowadays its all flat design with mobile in focus..... and this japanese website video reminded me of it :-)
haha word.
I actually miss the old internet. I hate the endless scrolling of modern design, overly simplified options only to realize later on that the service information you are looking for isn't there! Having all the options on the menus is much easier
As a web developer who enjoys cleaner design and loathes the old school ways we used to design websites, it's making me rethink how today's design systems need to be re-balanced. I still think those Japanese websites can look kinda bland, but I do think high-context can be beneficial in some use cases, so really it's just a matter of organizing elements on a page really well.
same. it's insane how people in the comments thinking japan is lacking in innovation or something because it didn't buy into the bullshit of modern web bloat.
@@OzzyTheGiant I think that the current model, messed up our capacity of choice. The clean design nowadays looks like more distraction than the japan old "messy" design. But the japan design, actually gives us more precise information, probably wasting less time navigating.
@@wagnersouza4463 actually the opposite is true. You waste minutes trying to find information in the dense wall of text that is a standard japanese website, compared to just clicking a single button that says eg. "Contact info" on a website with good design. Modern design != less information, that is a misconception made by people who think all pieces of information are equally important.
@@OzzyTheGiantOh, so you're why the net is enshittified. Thanks.
I'm japanese, I still browse reddit using the old subdomain. Reddit is a great example why old style is better. I also feel like new designs are riddled with dark patterns.
The dark patterns are almost exclusive to western design, I 100% agree. However, I feel like they are a consequence of a sales/scammy culture, rather than of design.
@@codeawareness Not sure about that. Whenever I had to do with Chinese websites, like AliExpress or xiaomi etc, often unsubscribing or deleting an account was not possible, as if they don't accept you leaving the platform. Temu is also an example of Dark Patterns. It's basically fueling it... The equivalent in China is pin duo duo, right? Is that completely different from Temu regarding dark patterns and tricking people???
old.reddit is the way, for sure!
to be fair most users don't like the new reddit UI. It was made to make the site scrollable, and for selling advertisements. it was never about usability.
@SuleymanSchedules old reddit works on mobile. I use it all the time.
Here's a fun fact for you all. It's not only internet, but powerpoint presentations as well. When I was in university in Tokyo and started having weekly presentations at my lab. The number one complaint I had was why my slides were so empty. In Japanese education system there seems to be a teaching from very young age that any whitespace must not be wasted...
Probably that belief it's from after the war, and has been passed along all these years.
It’s very true.
I have been to a tech conference once and one of the presentation by a Japanese Engineer is full of text, and his speech is just read the text!
I’m shocked and IMHO the presentation does not go well.
I feel for you. Same thing with power point presentations in corporate Japan. When we did investment roadshows in NY, LDN, Singapore etc. all the bankers rolled their eyes or glazed over at the made-in-Japan slide decks.
So ask Japanese people, why their houses outside the city are so empty. And fill them up with people, make babies maybe? Ask them that in return.
when I first start working for Japanese company, i got to do some report and when there are spaces on the page, my supervisor ask me like "you leave all these spaces for soccer or what???" LOL
As Japanese, I agree with most of the points, but the biggest reason is that over 30% of the population is 65+ yo and they tend to prefer "outdated" designs. The examples in the video are targeting mainly elder people (though the cafeteria is a cafeteria in a uni).
Also I want to add that the simple-looking Google is the top share in search engines and Amazon that looks almost the same as the US is the top in e-commerce in Japan.
英語すごい流暢ですね！！ほんとに尊敬します！自分は独学でここまで進歩したが主にリスニングを最初に訓練したのです なかなかうまく喋れません！！緊張あまりで（汗）いまは読解力鍛えてますが正直いうと苦労と思います 敬語もちょいとしか覚えてないし 流石に学校行ってビジネス敬語受けようか悩み中です！主さんは何年英語勉強したのですか？自分でよければ勉強の友になってくれませんか？ Language learning friends！ずっと欲しかったんですよ！日本人の友人が一人だけなのはすごい寂しいのです😭😭😭
Yeah very good point. I prefer older & info-heavy designs. Sleek interfaces make me wary of a scam or hidden sale.
It's either the young or the internet-illiterate that usually prefer sleek designs. They haven't developed a healthy cynicism yet when something looks too good/pretty. In Australia many 65+ aren't tech savvy, like it sounds like Japan is, and they get scammed all the time 😢
@@TheSdog9 Good point. Those full screen video wraps followed by pages of disassembled market speak until you hit the actual useful content. If you ever do. Web pages have sadly become an afterthought in the age of apps.
@@TheSdog9 That's amazing to hear! I'm not saying good or bad, but it's definitely opposite here for me. We have such a thing as con-men who trick people into agreeing and falling for what they're pushing (whether it's an actual scam, or just a corporate meeting, or so on), who convince people by overwhelming them with nonsense information so they just agree so they don't look stupid. When I see so much information, especially when there are ads in it, I feel like they're trying to do something dishonest. Amazon for example floods the page and it's messy, but it very carefully DOES hide things and decide on what they want you to see to trick you into buying something more expensive, even though it's "info heavy".
If you flood with too much information, it's easier to hide things in it, because nobody wants to go through it with a fine toothed comb, like reading some boring, long legal agreement. Like everyone just skips the EULAs, and probably worries about something bad being hidden in there. Adobe famously was recently discovered to have things in there people were not happy about, that nobody noticed for years.
@@bluecherrysakura HelloTalkって言うアプリ使ってみてね。たくさんの可愛い女の子からメッセージ出てきてるｗ
Meanwhile in FINLAND - is this low/high - every house entrance floor has a big cork board with pins on wall which is officially dedicated for any house tenant to write a "heippalappu / hey note" directed anonymously - yet very publicly - to your annoying neighbour in question - as in example - "Hey YOU with your kid playing piano at 2AM - it is too late and loud and we can´t sleep - PLEASE STOP!" - now this neighbour with kid is publicly noted in house and under shameful pressure to react without knowing who is behind that hey note - it works for us Finnish people as we do not want to encounter neighbour problems face to face - peace!
I've worked with someone who did some work in China in the early 00s, and they said that people over there just liked a lot of data/information available. You're spot on with the want for trust! The western businesses would want to sign up through a website or a single sales person whereas the Chinese businesses would want to meet in person, have lunch together, show the person their business.
Good points. However, having worked in Japan in Japanese companies, I can safely say that the reason why these sites don't change is not because of the reasons you gave, but because "this is how it has always been done", and the managers are still the same old jiji who knows nothing except keeping in their lanes and the status quo.
That’s a great point from a more social POV! For future vids, I’ll look into how social culture and more macro things can impact design. Thanks for your feedback :)
I have heard the same thing from people that took job offers in Japan. They mentioned a lot of the times the more experienced developers/designers would take a role for a foreign company or move abroad since they pay a lot more when compared to the average Japanese software/design role. The working hours of foreign companies operating in Japan are also supposed to be much better than Japan's "leave until the boss leaves" approach. However, it was interesting to hear a different perspective, I'm sure they both play a role.
and rightfully so, hopefully it stay that way. the western way is to always refresh with current trends, and utility is often lost in the process. i like the Japanese way better. simplicty and to the point.
TLDR: Same reason they use fax machines in 2024
As someone who has also lived and worked in Japan in the past, I think @user-bt7vc7eh6f has nailed it on the head. When the internet first arrived in Japan, the website designers copied the way the early internet was done (very messy, with much less effort at curating information out of the noise), and have since just kept doing it that way. Meanwhile, look at early Amazon vs. today's Amazon - the Western/American companies continued to innovate whereas Japan just kept doing the same thing over and over.
This is the kind of quality deep dive from a micro youtuber I desire. Original insights, careful observations, excellent distillations.
Glad you found this helpful, Dean! Thank you.
You obviously are not too bright yourself if you consider this dross "quality" material.
@@davidkoh7097 I'd say you're great fun at parties?
I believe current western web design is NOT "innovation". Western web design is about gaining and holding your attention, rather actually helping you find the information you are seeking. That is disingenuous.
The 2 AM Piano kid example in a high context society -> you hit the wall in anger with something heavy and your neighbor understands that its probably the kid playing piano from context.
"your kid plays piano really well" would really confuse me. Is that a pass for my kid to make even more noise? Maybe the noise helps them sleep well? I live in a more straightforward language culture.
@@wollastonit1863 well, you definitely don't get it 😹
@@le0pin The parent letting his kid play piano at 2am is the one not getting it, for real.
culture is amazing, i like this reply sub!
I mean, the Japanese one looks like the original yahoo
yup, glad I'm not the only one who remembers the old yahoo homepage.
Yes the Japan one looks like what Yahoo used to be at their peak in the 2000's.
I remember using basic HTML to make my own website on AOL as a kid. Mine looked just as cluttered and “ransom note”looking as Japan’s is now
@@dearthditch relax
It looks happy
Similar to my understanding from those other vids, Japanese UI design revolves around the site being an information hub or directory, whereas much of the Western world's UI design revolves around sales funnels and a call to action - their brand of low friction is more like make the ground as slippery as possible so you can slide into giving up your information or your money before you know it, then, if you realize you fell into a ditch it's hard to get out 🗿
I like clean, artistic, or visually exciting design, but I don't like the obsession of holding your hand and running with it over clarity and user agency.
I think another thing is a focus on trends and things that are new/contemporary, vs the norm of enjoying things that are familiar or traditional.
Very well said!!
You can interpret it as trying to "trick someone into slipping into a ditch" to paraphrase, but you can also see it as an extension of the American perspective on customer service. People want you to help them get to the root of the matter quickly, present a small number of the best options that suit their needs, explain the value and high-level pros/cons in summary, and then deliver the value/solution quickly and hassle-free. This means that marketing and sales funnels (in theory) are designed to quickly hook an audience that has a problem addressed by the product/service being touted, explain the high-level value proposition as succinctly as possible, offer a small number of variations that all suit the customers needs, and provide the service quickly and seamlessly. Now... the practice doesn't always match the theory and this framework of expectations does allow for more scummy behaviors, but it does have an internal coherence that isn't explicitly malicious.
I'm not against simple design per-se, like restaurant that shows home page with nice menu where everything is one or two clicks deep. But what I despise is product page where you need to scroll like 6 vertical screens on PC just to see animated transitions between something like presentation pages with minimum information and it takes you five clicks to find specs sheets and it's impossible to find product comparison. Or menus on PC where 1920x1200 pixels is common, yet we have vertical dialogs with big text, checkboxes and scroll bar instead of three columns like in Windows 95 to Windows 7 times (or 1995 to 2005). Windows 11 settings are absolute mess: random recommended settings, cloud storage usage, recovery, background, get office. Rest hidden behind hamburger menu.
Amazon don't allow or atleast strongly against power point. Bezos argues it is for salesman not meeting
@@franzwollang right, I can appreciate the solution-oriented design and onboarding, and it better serves branding and cool presentation, but it's only applied in one direction insofar as to get your money and/or data. Try to cancel or opt out of something and you might find it's buried under multiple menus or has hidden fees, if the option exists. I guess that's what the video meant about the need for "no surprises" in JP culture (ironic with the gambling culture tbh), and it's a bit better now after EU compliance went hard, I guess.
Very interesting. I am a backend software engineer and listening to this new information makes me realize UI/UX is a lot of work and research, it isnt just creating an interface for the user, it is so much more!
Nah, UI/UX is just an extension of sales department. As a developer, I don't like unrealistic design demands and unending loops of UI developments.
It's the same concept if you ever work in Japanese manufacturing companies.
Compress as much as visible information as possible in one page/slide so you can easily print and share
High contrast and opaque background colours on top of white page to distinguish information
Use general colour codes red = NG, yellow = warning, green = OK, blue = instruction
Reduce "muda" waste. Any space that is unused or work that is low impact is considered as waste.
Example, scrolling 2-3 pages or multiple clicks instead of one is a waste.
Didi's information rich approach looks so useful. With Uber everything looks minimal and simple but when your ride falls through you're left with no context about what just happened
*opens Lyft, gets equally lost.
I feel you. I’m curious, how would you like these ride share apps to be improved?
@@phoebeyutbt I think they err on the side of hiding "extraneous" information. But it's difficult to know whether it's realistic to hope for a ride at all until you try a bunch of times and fail and then give up. Up until that point, there's no accurate information about whether there are actually real cars in the vicinity
One thing though is that I'm pretty sure Uber/Lyft don't allow you to pick a driver to avoid discrimination. They don't want riders avoiding drivers based on race or gender.
everybody use Amap now.
Modern "minimalistic UI" is a disease brought to us be the insane-a-trons at Silicon Valley. Style over substance is never a good thing, except for items which purpose is style. Like vases, or picture frames. It's also patronising the user, by hiding options, data, info, anything the creator wants, from the user and only shows them what they *want* us to see.
I prefer the original internet design to the stuff we have today. Now they try to make a basic, informational page into some kind of work of art. Practicality is king IMO.
Yup if I want a beautiful experience I'll watch a movie, listen to music, or play a game. Websites are for reading and giving information.
There's so much extra fluff and negative space that just wastes time too. Making you scroll and scroll with just information padding of a few words here and there. They've given themselves confirmation bias that if a person stays on their site longer, it means it is better. So they make you waste your time instead of having it all obvious and direct.
While I agree, I'm much less offended by the presentation as by the sheer absence of data. Even in a technical career, when I download papers that are meant to describe the functionality and capability of devices, so much of it is pure marketing fluff that has no value and doesn't provide and useful information at all.
Brevity is itself an art. (Not one I always excel at, myself.) The best advice I ever got from a prospective employer was a critique on my resume (CV): Drop the sentence form from the skills section, and put them in a grid of bulleted phrases at the top of the page. I was briefly skeptical, but tried it, and was instantly won over. Exactly what one would need to know, in the easiest possible way to consume. Perfect.
Really interesting video, thank you! I have been thinking about this myself often since I was a kid essentially. As a Scandinavian native who speaks Japanese, already the process of learning the language teaches you so much about their culture and highlights the differences. Funnty enough Japan has both aspects "absolute visual overload" as well as "minimalism" baked into their culture and often they show up side by side which makes a particularly interesting contrast (example downtown alleys with 1000 boards and lights and blinking things yet suddenly a wooden section on a building with a simple minimalist design made from dark wood in the slick and beautiful old Japanese tradition. Maybe a little black and white lantern with a few Kanji and that's it. It lives in perfect harmony with the blinking mayhem around it. Thats one of the many things that makes Japan an endless source of interest and joy to me. On a side note, that short 4min talk by "Erin Meyer" that you linked and used snippets of, about high and low context societies is phenomenal and worth watching every second.
Swede perhaps?
To my taste, this was a 10 out of 10 for
- actually answering the question (= the opposite of clickbait). To the extent it is possible to answer any question in demand of a complex answer.
- clarity
- teaching me something new, and
- entertaining and enjoyable to watch
same
Perfect low-friction comment. All I need to do is agree 😆.
;D *internally crying happy tears. Please let me know if I can improve/help in any way!
She didn’t really go into the why this came about just some Americanized explanations as to possibly why.
I left a full comment on the main thread.
@@phoebeyutbt I have one critique: Keep an eye on the volume of your sound effects. They're louder than your dialog -- so much so, that your post-processing is actually ducking your dialog level to accommodate the loud effects without clipping the audio. You're sacrificing intelligibility in those brief moments for something that is more distracting than helpful. Consider prioritizing subtlety.
Other than that, I found this to be an exceptional video. There were a few fascinating revelations that left me exhilarated -- particularly learning that an innate feeling of low-grade anxiety I have in social situations (wanting to avoid inconveniencing others) is inherent to a whole culture. Perhaps that is part of why I felt relatively comfortable visiting Japan, despite not knowing the language or the customs. I think I just share some of those fundamental social values, so it feels familiar and accessible to me despite being a foreigner.
Did I expect to learn something about my own psychology when clicking on a video of "why does Japanese Yahoo look like it did in 2001?" No, I did not. You have a gift for insight, and skillful research, that makes me genuinely hopeful that you continue to contribute to this platform. It needs you.
I’m not sure about innovation in Japan, but it seems to me that it’s not just that they prioritize hardware over software.
I recently went to visit friends (they live in Osaka) and was amazed at how much technology there is from the 2000s and even the 90s. I saw several stores with CDs; our Japanese friends, whom we visited, had a VHS player at home. Friends told me that government agencies still use floppy disks(!). For example, in Russia we haven’t had all this for a long time. Unless it’s stored in someone’s attic, but not used on a daily basis.
Are you certain they were talking specifically about floppy disks, that's crazy?
There is no money to change and update things. The economy is in decline people keep everything the same.
@@HermanWillems or they are getting much more worth out of what they spent already, make the switch to the new thing when there is actual benefit from it, rather than just being obligated to spend a budget, because if you don't - someone will replace you who will spend it
Why is it a problem though?
Мои друзья заканчивали омский государственный университет несколько лет назад, им сказали принести копию их выпускной работы для архива на дискете. в моем универе тоже просили приносить курсовые на дисках. в обычных домах и семьях в россии тоже полно пузатых телевизоров из 2000х, домашних телефонов и т.д. так что не надо утверждать так уж однозначно)
For me, the more information overload happens right in my face, I actually call it clutter, the fewer I trust in a website, because I always have to assume this is a method of deception to distract me from the essential. I prefer clean minimalistic websites which have a good architecture, where I see only few essential bits of information on the first glance and I am able to dig deeper if I want to. The information should not be missing, but it should be put away in a logical menu or folder structure.
i am so glad to stumble upon this video of yours! As a design student/geek since forever, i'm afraid that with doing work, i have started to lose interest in design and how fun and interesting it is. Watching your video reminded me of so much fun knowledge that is included in design, whether is culture, history, or even just the demographic. I am so happy to see you in my home page! Love the intersection of design, psychology and history! 💗✨
At some point I realized the differences of culture are deeply rooted in the linguistic differences and seemingly begin there. Human relations and social norms only being capable through thought, expressed in one's language, with its own unique rhythm, vocabulary, concepts. I mean you notice generally that peoples of separate but related languages share more in common culturally (e.g. romance, slavic, etc.) and that's true for everyone everywhere lol, so like take the two opposite poles of the hemisphere and read it from East Asia to the British Isles to North America. It's the North-South dynamic that really shakes things up tho. Besides the point.
I only thought this because of you saying east Asians are on average better at navigating complex info, which I agree with, bc of how much nuance is built into the Chinese writing system itself and its interaction with the indigenous/foreign Korean and Japanese languages. It seems like in the US people prefer things more direct and stated directly, which is totally a function of the language. At its base English is germanic, so its gon be quite direct.
I thought about this for a long time
Japanese web design is definitely an interesting topic. I've been working as a web developer and designer for a Japanese marketing company in Japan for almost a decade, and there is certainly an expectation of what content is available on the first page.
Also, there has definitely been a shift in design and web technology over the past few years. We've been building many 採用 (recruitment) sub-sites for big companies, and the focus on these sites is generally clean and modern design, even though the main sites are still almost unchanged from 10-15 years ago.
And don't get me started on high friction UX, especially with contact forms...
High fiction is so that people already drop out before even applying. The same is with tax and pension return. They make it difficult by default so that people don't bother and leave the money to the government. But old websites, in Japan everything has to be legacy and backwards compatible. Just look at power outlets. GND cable hanging out? Are you for real? Just upgrade to 3 pin plug. Force people to make changes for better!
I wonder if autistic people have an even harder time in a high context culture. I'm not autistic, and I would still appreciate someone being direct rather than telling me my kid is good at the piano.
YES. Japan is a neurodivergent person's nightmare.
Ooh fair point! Curious to see how people with different disabilities/abilities function in different cultures. Do you think they are provided accommodations the same way like in low context cultures?
I think my country (India) is in middle of the two ends you talked about. People are loud-mouthed and won't bother causing some "trouble" to other people. But, at the same time, they will use nuanced language to communicate stuff - it's almost never direct. Convenience for us is about speed but most people don't value convenience as much as cost-effectiveness. They need tons of information/context before making a decision, esp involving money. Usually, complicated designs don't trouble users here - banking websites, shopping websites, government website are all "outdated". Yet, the newer apps are minimal and sleek and that is because they don't have to cater to old people (that are used to seeing things in a certain way) and the only people who use them have suddenly come online. For most people, their first ever "computer" was a smartphone. Many haven't seen a computer at all. So, they are not used to the ways of archaic designs and hence can work with more minimal designs now. I think it's a weird mix - "Japanese-style" banking website and "American-style" food delivery apps!
Culture differences are fascinating. With India we found a tendency to ask for "your best price" when ordering, this is with prices at say $299. We thought this was a bartering proclivity, but we tried increasing prices to a more odd number and unexpectedly far fewer asked for discounts and just accepted the price. We also find a high level of urgency (maybe your "trouble" and "speed" reference) in requests, and despite a good proficiency in English, there's a greater demand to be "fed" information that's readily available than for most other regions. Of course other countries have their quirks too.
@@makers_lab Great points! However, the English proficiency stat is skewed. Most people can speak and understand English, but only in bits. Most people need to be "fed" information because either they don't have the confidence they got it correctly by reading or because they want a "off-screen" confirmation (maybe talking to a rep since everything used to be offline) to make a decision online. Things are changing now.
I'm not completely sure I understand the anecdote about the Japanese keyboard. As someone who's been learning Japanese for a while, I'm actually actively using that type of keyboard and in my opinion it is a very smart design that neatly fits the characteristics of the Japanese language and I'd argue makes you type less than a qwerty keyboard would.
Here's what I mean:
Japanese doesn't really have the sorts of consonant clusters you might find in some European languages, but instead every "syllable" consists of one (or no) consonant followed by a vowel. And there are only 5 vowel sounds in Japanese: a i u e o.
So you're pretty much guaranteed to always be following up every consonant by one these vowels. Which means that if you have a system in which you either tap one of the consonant buttons or flick it in one of the four cardinal directions, you have taken care of all the possible combinations of (consonant) + (vowel).
Basically this:
む
みまめ
も
is the same as this:
mu
mi ma me
mo
So in the end you would need the same amount of taps as in qwerty (one for the consonant group and then one for the vowel), but now the distance that your finger travels is shortened (since the vowel variants pop up around the initially selected character).
But that's not all!
Written Japanese doesn't have distinct characters for differentiating voiced vs unvoiced consonants (for example g vs k), but instead has a marking on the same character to indicate voicedness (compare か vs が or す vs ず). So they also made a button for that.
All of this means that they have way fewer buttons on their keyboard, which in turn means the keys/buttons can be made bigger relative to qwerty keys. And bigger buttons means less of a chance of mistyping and having to correct yourself.
So in the end, what confuses me about this example is that it seems that in direct comparison with the qwerty keyboard, the design principles are flipped. The qwerty one is the one that has all the available choices upfront and crams it all into a tight space while the Japanese keyboard prioritizes ergonomics and frictionless UX (typos are certain to cause friction, I'd argue). Because it should be noted that Japanese would also work with a qwerty keyboard (as it does on a desktop PC), so this design isn't really born out of necessity.
It was an example of fast information processing. But thanks for your detailed explanation, it’s interesting.
Thanks for asking the question, that puzzled me too. (Also, I have been learning Japanese for a while and I felt inordinately proud that I could follow the description of the writing system! I might be getting somewhere... 🤣)And thanks to @Beerftw for the clarification.
This works well with syllabaries. But I'm curious to know how they deal with the almost endless options of logograms, the kanji.
@@alfastur6833 Basically like autocorrect. You have a bar on top with suggestions for the kanji that fit what you just wrote and then you tap on the one you want.
It actually works like this for Chinese as well (which usually just uses a qwerty keyboard as the base)
@playtypus4592 thanks.
Really like how you include opinion from practitioner with high context on Japanese tech field like Mayuko and Riccardo, the information makes your content even more relevant.
Thanks Corry! Always making sure these vids are research backed - open to feedback and critique
The whole high context communication thing sounds like a recipe for misunderstandings
It's honestly very straightforward and simple, and so much less RUDE
@LongWaster real
@@LongWaster It's not straightforward at all. It's a system of NOT saying what is meant, and the other person is supposed to GUESS at what it meant based on context. That is literally the opposite of simple and straightforward. It's actually borderline toxic - making people guess what you want and then shaming them when they get it wrong is kind of basics of emotional abuse, lol.
Today I learned that I have a Japanese mindset regarding the websites, even if I am Italian, never been in Japan. 🙂
I prefer explicit information because I feel that if you are not telling me something, you have a reason to hide it.
Very nice video, thank you!
ive logged into CZcams like 10 times in the past 3 days and this video has been on my main page, first video, all 10 times. the algo loves you
I mean, with only 3.5k views, idk if I would really go that far. It's probably just relevant to your interests.
It says it was posted 1 day ago. Tell me what it's like in the distant future of two days from now, please
@@SRagy I wonder what they actually meant by 3 days. 6 hours?
@@timecarpet real. but it just wont go away untill i saw it
@@timecarpet not literally 72 hours. i saw it one night, went to bed, woke up to it, then saw it while i was going to bed the next morning
Instant subscribe! You have such a gentle and digestible way of describing things, this video felt like a journey and everything made sense in the end. Blows my mind that it's from a small new CZcams account. Really looking forward to seeing more from you!
as someone who loves 90s-2000s web design i wish more websites looked like this, i still use old website versions/extensions like old reddit and youtube redux when i can..
The thing is there are some aspects of Japanese web design for which there is no possible argument that it's intentional/thoughtful design rather than technical incompetence.
In particular, the presentation of textual data as images is still way more common in Japan than other countries with no alt/aria tags. It's completely inaccessible to people with visual disabilities, can't be indexed by search engines, doesn't adapt well to different device form factors and isn't easily machine translatable.
The only reason to make a website this way is lack of knowledge of web fundamentals to achieve the same design with native DOM. All operating systems and browsers have long had comprehensive UTF-8 support.
I've lived in China for half a decade and indeed most things are designed so that every inch of space is filled with details and information, while other things may take an opposite approach, and be extremely minimalistic. I agree with what's said in the video. I also feel that the culture here just tends to fall into extremes in all aspects of human existence. But it's just a generalization that I have never observed or studied. I would say that for the most part, the designs have organically evolved to look like that because of the common culture of conformity and copying (which is encouraged). For example, whenever we are designing a new product here, the management suggests "let's do it like a company X" does that. About the choices given in apps, like different types of rides, and dozens of assortments of a product on Taobao, it may seem at first like a luxury, but now I find myself dreading shopping for anything because choosing from among so many options is mentally exhausting. Not to mention that such complexity invites room for a lot of mistakes.
Yikes. Plagiarism as built into the culture. Creativity not rewarded, just be the same as everyone else and don't be different because we like conformity. Soul destroying.
I will say. Being very illustrative with food is something I wish the US would borrow from Japan (among other things)
Gosh I’m so indecisive, every time I’m living in Japan I appreciate having food replicas in the outside windows to see how the food looks and what everything is. I’m a full time web developer and I did look into this once. It’s so interesting. The intersection of culture , mind , and technology in general is interesting. Thank you for the video.
Edit:oh the high context thing is sooo true haha. I’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t live there but I’ve spent enough time. When the chef mentions how nice it is that I seem to be so appreciative of the food and how much I’m savoring it I know he wants me to hurry up already cuz I’ve been there a while hahahaha
In the same vein it is fun to pick something and maybe ask the waiter what they recommend so you can try new food, without seeing what it is.
@@The_Gallowglassask the waiter! It’s a nightmare for Asian people 😂
@@WarmheartedKyubey lol they need to adult up
Super interesting! Being in web dev for 15 years now I never thought of what's being considered "convenient" in regards of web design might actually differ in different cultures.
It's always a surprise to figure out how much actually goes under "localization".
Thanks a lot for expanding my horizon!
As a neurodivergent person who suffers from severe anxiety attacks every day I really appreciate asian web design because there is less uncertainty
Less uncertainty about what? I am really confused. I'm also ND, and the Japanese web designs look overwhelming to me.
can we agree that "high context communication" is a nightmare though... when people are secretly mad at you for not doing something they never actually told you they wanted you to do, because you were supposed to read their "signals". JUST TELL ME!
Less uncertainty? They literally throw so much info at you it's impossible to process it all and you'll actively find different stuff about the same subject page to page
Yeah I don't agree. As ND, I find this design offensive, looks cheap and untrustworthy like a scam website, and far to busy to identify the important information. HAte it.
@@rasurin welcome to the internet
What an enlightening video - thank you for this research and views! I also loved your pace of delivery, it was not rushed like many other youtubers where they speak with lightning speed, being afraid that the viewer will lose interest.
Japanese software developer here.
There's another factor here, which maybe is related to the point about higher information density: Japan has a lot of dense, pedestrian-first cities, which means people are constantly interacting with each other. It's not like in North America, where you meet your family at home, go to work and meet your coworkers there, and then go home again. Even if it's just to avoid bumping into someone else at the station, you're talking pretty frequently. You get used to going out of your way to avoid stepping on each other's toes, both literally and figuratively.
Also, culturally, Japan's had an Internet before the Internet, just that the network layer buffered data on the order of hours as opposed to milliseconds, because information would get passed around by foot. Sneakernet was real. That's kind of why Japanese TV is so weird: even celebrities have had to be down-to-earth to be accepted, so the production value and pace of iteration has always been closer to what it is on CZcams nowadays -- minus the sheer number of channels that allows a lot of CZcams to end up being actually good.
It's also why software and IT in general is so second class in Japan: there just hasn't been as much of a need. I still find that, even with all its flaws, the convenience of, say, Tokyo, more than makes up for the convenience of online services here in Vancouver.
At the same time, I found it sad when, for example, around ten years ago, I asked why my friend needed a PSP, a phone, an mp3 player _and_ a watch, when all I had was an iPhone 3. His baffling answer: "What if the battery runs out?"
So yeah, we fell behind, and now I fear that a lot of organizations in Japan are making a ton of mistakes in its frantic rush to catch up.
I regularly forget to charge my phone. The battery running out is a *real* issue, and the more critical services are specifically tied to phones, the more of an accessibility issue that's going to become.
I love this comment "Also, culturally, Japan's had an Internet before the Internet, just that the network layer buffered data on the order of hours as opposed to milliseconds, because information would get passed around by foot."
Hi Rei, thank you for providing a nuanced, informative insight!
@christianknuchel Also regarding losing my phone, I am paranoid about putting an e-wallet on it, rightly or wrongly.
I like to keep my money separate. Just like I prefer not to have my CC info saved on a website -- though that is hard when you have to create an account just check out.
Great video! As a guy from the USA living in America I feel like there are areas where we are more high context than Colombians. But on the whole they are more high context than we are. For example a Colombian rarely will tell you “no.” On the other hand, if you’re trying to tell a Colombian neighbor or relative it’s time to leave or go home, you can’t just say “I’m getting sleepy.” You literally have to say “OK. I’m going to bed now. I need you to leave”
Japanese = overwhelming but fairly straightforward
US = seemingly simple but deceptively complex
Finally, a channel that explains something I am interested in without going "off-topic" from the thumbnail....I hope your channel becomes successful. Thank you for keeping it to the point, being unique in your delivery, and interesting.
4:59 Excellent video and appreciate the research that went into this. Never knew the various social and cultural impacts on UI design. Thanks for sharing
Indeed! Every product reveals the story of the person who built it. Thanks for your support.
'Kinda funky' is a nice way of putting it 😆. Ultimately this has more to do with unwillingness to change than any of the other stuff you mentioned. The unwillingness to change probably has partly due to the fact that Japan has a massive elderly population and also guess who calls the shots at all these companies? The old geezers are the ones at the top and decisions largely come down to an age based hierarchy.
Also, the menu example doesn't really hold up that well either. Lots of menus have tons of pictures (which is fantastic btw), but some of the most 'Japanese' restaurants and izakaya's I've been to have no pictures whatsoever (and lots of kanji) with no additional descriptions or anything.
I'm Japanese but I never use Japanese websites, they always give me headaches.
i wouldn't care so much if they just looked ugly by modern UI/UX standards re: information overload. But they're so so so commonly just not functional. They're slow, confusing to use, and often time rely on hardcoded input options. If you try to do something outside the predicted or standard inputs, you're out of luck. Especially with names: If you don't have a kanji name, it can be very hard to input in anything. Plus if you live outside of Japan, many Japanese websites become unusable.
LOL to Japanese, nothing exists outside of Japan,
I'm not sure it is ideal to think of western design as "clean, simple" + "modern". Many things can be modern that don't meet the western expectation of "clean" and "simple". Complex design can also be modern.
👍
Can you elaborate?
Phoebe, this is really interesting. It got me thinking about communications and the way we consume all kinds of information and entertainment. The pacing of movies could be a good example, too. Great job!
Great video. I would say this: In a world where more and more people are becoming content creators, this generates a level of noise that is (much more) favorable to "low content" cultures and societies. Meaning that while some societies might culturally wish for more nuance, life will become literally unbearable with it (your field of knowledge/work will become more and more complex, a base-level professional in your field will need to read an impossible number of articles/books just to earn a reasonably good salary, and people will be on edge all the time with information, misinformation and disinformation).
This is already happening today and will just keep getting worse. Low content will become more prevalent, regardless of cultural pressure to the contrary.
I'm 54, white, of European lineage, born and raised in America by a family with roots here back to the 18th century, so I should not really relate to the Japanese design philosophy here, but I LOVE this! I was raised to do my best not to offend or hurt others, because why is offending or hurting others EVER good? Some of the commenters below were apparently raised in households where hurting and offending others was a benefit. That's sad, but it's a comment on a large part of the American population I'm afraid. I admire the Japanese culture for their ingrained system of honor and respect.
I love these over-complicated websites because it does give me ALL of the information. It reminds me of how American advertising USED to be back in the '70's and back. One modern example that's actually American is to look at the popular product "PB Blaster", which is a penetrating oil product. The can is a standard spray can, a' la WD-40, but it's COVERED in descriptions, instructions, etc. It looks to my eye like something from the '60's...but once you've examined all of it you KNOW what you're getting.
I think that this is exactly the appeal of the Temu website, and others like it. I'm an auto parts salesman, and this phenomenon reminds me of a company called Regal Tools. Instead of hanging their products neatly on your store walls, they supply a large table "bin", into which the many types of tools are simply piled up. People LOVE rooting through what looks like a bargain bin to find that surprise "tool I always needed", and you would be amazed how much this psychological maneuver sells. It's the same reason kids love the idea of a pirate map leading you to buried treasure. The hunt. The unknown reward at the end. There's something for everyone with this sort of format, and the fact that you have to dig for it implies that others are missing the treasure YOU found. It scratches an itch that a lot of people never realize they have.
I honestly prefer old UI, there's reason why I use Reddit old style for example,
or avoid using software with stupid "modern" UI that takes more clicks to get things done and opt for "old UI" alternative...
too many modern UI designs are in fact, INCONVENIENCE. Those designers are often too occupied with showing off rather than ensure user can get things done fast & easy.
And sometimes they don’t even load with a bad internet connect or signal
From example given:
high context = passive aggressive
low context = no bs
the menu example was awesome. I personally hate the norm of US restaurants opting for minimal pictures. I don't go out to eat often, I would want to know exactly what to expect. I remember watching an episode of Kitchen Nightmares and Gordon Ramsey dug into the owner for slapping pictures all over the menu and it made me want to tear my hair out.
It’s just 2000’s style plain and simple. The Japanese didn’t dumb down their internet like corporate America did in the 2010’s.
Growing up in Japan, I can tell you first hand that "taijin kyofusho" is an utterly demoralizing part of Japanese culture and society and one of the main drivers behind Japanese people searching for ways out of Japan. It basically teaches you to cancel yourself in deference to others, but without fully recognizing who or what the self or the other is. And it's not taught in an overtly explicated way, it's incremental, starting in pre-school with behavioral structures in public institutions (positioning objects, mapping lines and boundaries etc.). People often say to me, "who the f are you to judge thousands of years of culture?" To which I say, I am an individual who thinks that sometimes cultures can get it wrong and this is one of the those times. I moved to the US when I was 20 for study abroad in uni, and I didn't go back.
There's a similar (but much less severe, especially with all recent immigration) problem in Sweden.
A lot of untold rules of what is good or not good to do, the high context communication explained in the video everywhere. Basically only people who were born in Sweden and lived abroad for some time understand how messed up it is. Many others think this is the only correct way to do things and don't understand why immigrants don't understand their signs.
(Fun fact: "enryo no Katamari" is also a thing here)
It is important to consider how your actions affect other people, but it is also important to remember than your life matters too.
I'm living in central Europe and I think I was never taught "taijin kyofusho" but I resonate with it very deeply. I wonder how that happened?
@@darekmistrz4364 Probably not something you should want to resonate with.
@@The_Gallowglass Oh yeah, let me just change my character... What a comment...
That menu at 2:38 was probably a glass cabinet full of plastic food models earlier.
I would love to watch a video where you analyze a Japanese website in detail. What are the design principles? How do they decide which information to put on the front page?
Do users of Japanese websites behave in a different way? Fewer clicks? More Scrolling? More or less time on site?
For someone who speaks Japanese as a 3rd foreign language, I want to poke my eyes out every time I visit Japanese websites. Especially when you look for a simple definition of something and all you find is a blog with a crooked design and 9000 lines of introductory, useless info that everyone knows already. Way too much prelude. Just like in Japanese business mail.
This was so refreshing to watch. Thanks for the insights!
Interesting video! Also; no one will ever convince me that giving a backhanded compliment instead of directly saying what you need is any form of good communication. Great websites; awful interpersonal communication.
I was like, why do I felt like I've seen you IRL, and it turns out you're a Vandy student! Thumbs up to these highly professional videos, and good luck to your future endeavors.
no clue what the keyboard example was trying to illustrate. It's not "Gentle UX", it's two things:
1. People got used to typing on flick-type keyboards because old Nokia phones used the exact same format (minus the flicking). Many older people still type by tapping the buttons instead of flicking
2. It is simply much much easier and faster to type Japanese with flick due to its alphabet system
Feels like this video is just not that well-researched
Ok well that food menu is awesome...so many times I've ordered something in Canada and wasn't what I thought because not everything has pictures or if they do those pictures not always accurate.
That was very insightful and nice c= thanks Phoebe x3 something I noticed as well from experience and I think worth pointing out is that, some ways of thinking put more importance in one's sense of being and who they are through their actual, and projected intent more than materialistic result as a measure, and I think this philosophical context tends to get overlooked especially when analyzed from a more materialistic, material result-based framework which seems to be heavily influenced by culture
For example, the segment showing a UX designer's perspective of the cultural difference talks about aversion to cause inconvenience to others, but even so they view it or at least talked about it in their writing from the lens of one's personal measure of convenience, that is a characterization that while functionally speaking is accurate, if we just observe and analyze things from a materialistic result standpoint, but I think it misses the wider context of and the intent behind why that is the case
In Phoebe's own example of the child playing music loudly during the night we can kind of see that implicit difference too, "to be nice" is not simply a different way to achieve a material goal, but is the whole point or a large part of it because it reflects one's intent in being and expressing who they are, in a way it can be seen as one's control of who they are through how they choose to do and react to things more than it being measured by materialistic measures
I have a personal difficulty with this difference as well, one of my best friends seems to be more used to explicit ways of communicating, missing that what's implied or inferred through communications and how we say things are also as important, which can be a problem especially when we interact with our wider friends group, but I'm sure they'll eventually understand x3 ♥
Thanks again Phoebe c= I might show this video to my friend too
My brain doesn't like it... It almost explodes when I see web design like that.
The real answer: to cater to old people who make up a lot of the $$$
Most young Japanese people I talk to prefer the sleeker minimalistic western designs of websites. I also find some software decisions of Japanese firms to be objectively bad.
For example:
A form with 20 inputs.
Made a mistake in one?
Start from the beginning.
The is objectively bad design.
Probably because soon they will be like the west and function like they have ADHD all the time. I work IT and it’s so frustrating getting the 20’s some to RTFM. Talk about having a generation hyperactive stress out adults.
@@MrDecessus You are trying to justify high friction, bad onboarding with ADHD. In reality an app should only require the bare minimum info for a given functionality, not require sensitive personal data, and for the love of god better form validation as in validation on blur not on submit. Specially after filling 20+ fields and no highlight of which input is wrong.
@@MrDecessus ADHD vs drone who can't think for themselves....
I bumped into your video today and was fascinated by your work on this video, thanks for sharing!!
Thank you, tiantianyellow
This is so thought provoking! I studied abroad in Japan as well and always loved how much advertisting, menus, maps, and information eased my mind with the surplus of information, but online I found myself stressed at the overload of info. I never once thought of why that amount of info could equal convenience for Japanese people, it makes so much sense now that you've explained it. Wonderful vid!
This is a super-great video. I have realized that my wife is a high-context person and I am a much less low-context person. So it's important to her to get a lot more details about things, which used to make me impatient. But now I understand things and it makes it much easier for us.
Thanks for sharing this insight!
Reddit had some of this design before the developers destroyed it.
as a developer, you should be pointing fingers at probably the marketing/design team lol, we just follow specifications
This is very informative and eye opening. Love it.
Super well done video.
I'm still not convinced it's intentional to have so much information on the screen, but you do make a lot of good points. I've made a bunch of software and websites, and I'm very opinionated about web design I guess... But these points that you made will probably be on repeat in my head for a few years lol
People are overthinking all of this. How the japanese internet looks today is exactly how the American internet looked 30 years ago, which makes complete sense considering the country has the oldest population in the world, and is generally quite conservative. It doesn't take a degree to understand.
Rakuten(big e-commerce in japan) had done AB test that simple design vs horrible design.
horrible site design had better result. (at least for their customer)
that's why they are like that and personaly i hate those.
their global website website actually pretty simpel jajajaja
where i can find the article?
@@an__d i couldn't find particular article. but many people who involved in business mentioning about it on twitter or blog or something.
I would love Japanese-style websites in English. That Japanese Yahoo makes me remember the web before it sucked.
Well the web here sucks (in Japan).
Awesome video Phoebe - surprised that the CZcams algorithm brought me here! Love the intercultural communication tie-in👌
- Elvin from study abroad
stumbled upon this vid, enjoyed it enough to sub!
About the iphone JP keyboard (as others have already pointed out) that's just a natural way to organize things, as that is the order the "kana" are written
a i u e o
ka ki ku ke ko
sa shi su se so
and so on, it's just how a JP speaker would "think" when given a visual representation of the kana like the mobile KB, they can quickly discern all the "K" sounds are "under" the "ka" character.
which leads me to a suggestion that you look at UI/UX of JP and eastern designed videogames originally meant for far east market, vs videogames of the US. Quite a lot of design differences to unpack and compare there as well, and also how some games localize well in other markets vs those that are not
anyhoo looking forward to more vids!
I completely agree with a lot of your points but I have some pretty hard pushback, too. I've been there twice and I'm a software engineer with a fair amount of experience in this space.
I think the Amazon/Didi examples you provided are actually great examples of intuitive and cohesive software design, and not what people frequently complain about. Those applications are very different from many traditional Japanese websites in your first examples. Japan's mobile application experiences are great, but it's also because mobile development, most of the time, is much more rigid with rules and the components you're allowed to use to build applications out of the box. Mobile development is much more recent than web development, and user experience is baked into most mobile application frameworks at some level because of the smartphone interface, essentially forcing a better ground floor level for user experience than a lot of web applications designed for a laptop, for example. These mobile applications are incredibly similar to US-counterpart mobile applications like Amazon and Uber and follow a lot of the same user experience rules.
While I agree that high context and high information availability are incredibly valuable to Japan, the 'designs and layouts' of some of your first examples in isolation (not how much information they carry) are seriously outdated in more than one way. Older layouts like these can fatigue a user physically (think blue light levels), negatively impact performance (outdated web components that unnecessarily server-render), and create security concerns in some cases (if a website's design and layout isn't touched in 10 years, I don't trust it). Chaotic layouts can lead to a large number of competing interests within your own platform. This can introduce physical fatigue in users as well as indecision, sometimes called "analysis paralysis." This then increases the need for more information because you still haven't decided, and it becomes a vicious cycle.
The trade-off of more clutter in Japanese web applications means you actually share less about each individual thing on the screen, and I feel like there's a much better way to do "high information" that sticks to Japanese values. Which one would a Japanese citizen actually trust and engage with more? Less peripheral clutter and more information (this is possible), or more clutter with less information on each item? It's a valid question. Think of a Tabloid newspaper trying to hope one thing sticks out to you, versus a newspaper with a cohesive design that wants you to read it for a while. Both have high information but the less cluttered one actually has more information per thing you see. Which one do you trust?
While less might be more in the USA in terms of information on some types of our websites, it's very possible to achieve high-information design more intuitively and aesthetically to reduce stress and increase trust. Using softer shades, smooth transitions, and having a cohesive user experience is better than having choppy designs that often have wildly different and unpredictable styles of interactivity plugged next to each other. I've seen so many bad plugins on Japanese websites that behave completely unlike anything else on the same site. In contrast, there are several examples of high-information web applications in the USA with high levels of trust in similar ways to Japan. Really well-done auto manufacturer websites have high information availability along with a calmer and more cohesive design because a high level of information and transparency is needed when deciding what vehicle you want to buy. They also focus on mobile responsiveness to make it easy to navigate for all users, regardless of platform. A stable system that is predictable and cohesive in design also communicates trust. You can tell when you're on a website that takes a lot of time and effort. And you can tell when you're not. There is a massive amount of room for improvement while also respecting a "high information" and "high context" culture like Japan.
The real argument, for me, is that Japan is just "used to using sites like this and seeing colors like that," specifically a lot of the older generation. They are ok with the quirks as long as it does what they want. As a result, that's where a lot of their trust is because "if it isn't broken, why fix it?" Well, unfortunately, using a lot of their sites as a professional, I can attest that there is a lot of broken functionality in a lot of these traditional Japanese websites. Japan's also not a culture full of complainers. It has its pros and cons. From what I've gathered, a Japanese citizen on average would tend to assume they've made a mistake and would rather avoid the discomfort of suggesting that a website has a bug through an email. They'll just use something else or go about what they need to do a different way. This doesn't exactly help quality control. All it will take, in my opinion, is a big company or two to start redesigning calmer, cohesive user experiences with just as much information, and their web design will evolve. And, I can't say this enough, mobile applications in Japan are a massive leap from many of their traditional web applications, technically and aesthetically.
The main difference between Asian and American culture is - Asian: Ask questions first, trust later. American: trust first, sue later.
Asian culture - do what you're told and just repeat what other people did. Don't you dare question anything, especially old people or your boss, even if they are wrong.
Western culture - don't copy people, develop your own self, and be independent, try something new.
Americans - make money. At all costs.
I'll be proud to say "hey, youtube recommended this channel to me when she had just 8 videos, I'm here from the beggining" hahaha grretings from Brazil, great content.
Finally, CZcams algorithm coming through. I always wondered why I like these Japanese website layouts.
Also, I like the sound design.
0:10 I don't know why do you think they are so different. They both have got 3 columns
Modern web/UI design is an insane swamp of terrible ideas, much of which seems to be based on the simple question of "How can we waste as much space as humanly possible?". I actually like what these Japanese sites look like.
Wow! didn't expected much from random CZcams recommendation, but this was a great information!
NOW I totally understand why my driver's license translation, the registration of my drone AND my e-Sim looked so complicated at first, while being so quick, smart and efficient... and using their brain power so differently probably explains as well why japanese products are so well made and people seem so smart. thx for the great enlightment. As a forrmer communication trainer in Europe and now trying my life in Japan, I must admit that the differences are FASCINATING.
Japan isn't as technologically advanced as you think. Companies are very resistant to change and new ideas, especially from young people. They still use fax machines, floppy disks, and rubber stamps. It isn't high context - it's just bad.outdated website design.
Doesn’t that still go back to high context, high trust? They use these things cause a fax machine isn’t going to track all your data.
"very resistant to change and new ideas, especially from young people". New ideas dont mean good ideas. Or do you actually think the western internet is in a good spot right now?
So you love cargo cult.
Japan is still stuck in the 90s. Just look at their music (rock?), hair (lots of hair spray), and technology (fax machines) They still use faxes for official purposes. And, it was only recently that their banks allowed customers to open accounts via their mobile devices without having to visit a branch. Oh, and most of the restaurants are cash only. Cash only!!!😂
Sounds just like Germany to me, except for the rock music and hair spray.
@@BillyBlaze6907 lol. Germany still uses fax machines? Shouldn't the Euro ban them or something? And cash only? Most Japanese eateries use kiosks for orders, and those only take cash.
@@iu2 Yes, German municipal administration is still heavily relying on physical documents, fax machines and printers. Also, it is still very common here to not be able to pay by card. Germans have traditionally been very skeptical towards new technology with regard to privacy and security. Our politicians completely missed the digital transformation.
@@BillyBlaze6907 OMG. lol. I watch these videos made by this German girl who is soon-to-be-married to a Korean guy, and she never mentioned anything about faxes and cash-only. I will have to ask her.
If you look far away from mainstream Japan has awesome music. I especially love the 70s jazz stuff that came out of Japan. And of course the hair metal (ok more rock) stuff like x-Japan. But then this is going back in the past a little bit.
Absolutely great video. Ive been in Japan for 20 years now and always wondered why they kept their websites design unchanged.
I'm so glad someone is finally touching on this!!!! CZcams knows exactly what to recommend me, thank you
Super interesting. As someone who builds web applications; I watched this from a professional curiosity, but I learned much more. I have an uncle who was conducting business with Japanese companies during most of his career, and he has some interesting stories from his career. Your explanation of "low-context" vs. "high-context" suddenly made those stories make sense. E.g. how they had to interpret the communication; I guess it was really about understanding the relevant context for the message.
As a Pole i always wanted to live in a high context society i just didnt know how to explain it
Thank you. This was very helpful. As an American software engineer, I find Japanese web sites slow, cluttered and clunky. Your video explains the psychology behind it. Although, I think there is still much room for improvement.
I loved this video. Also, I kinda enjoy Japanese ux, perhaps because I also like the “here’s everything you want in one screen” approach.
Having done some UX work in the US, I’m not sure I buy the argument-with regard to _people in the US,_ not Japan. Even if people in the US are lower on “uncertainty avoidance” 1:51, _no_ user I ever tested liked _any_ uncertainty in a web site design-they _always_ wanted to _know_ if they clicked a link or a button, where it would take them or what consequences it would have and disliked it if they were at all unsure about it. (And it might be, as a side note, that people in the US might _prefer_ information-rich displays, such as image-laden menus in Japan 2:37, too-it’s just that, as is typical in the US, the consumer experience is “suboptimized,” both as a cost-saving measure and because it’s consistent with the US cultural value of “it’s good enough” or what might be called “satisficing.”)
The _other_ issue is that it is not clear to me from the video if the cluttered, 1990s version of the Yahoo! site in Japan reduces “uncertainty,” or if some Japanese user would feel more “uncertain” using a localized version of the US site and, if so, why, as opposed to, say, just preferring the Japanese site because it’s what they’re used to. (Having a menu of country names by letter A, B, etc. doesn’t make me any less certain of what I will get if I click a letter as opposed to, say, having all the names listed from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Users in Japan might _prefer_ more items at the top level but it doesn’t mean they’re “uncertain” if they _don’t_ get that.)
I love this and you opened my perspective to alternate layouts catering to cultural differences. Thanks for tanking the time to make this video!
I like her. Almost soothing, listening to her. And i got a lot of useful info on JO that i can actually use for design. Subscribed!
Loved this video, definitely learned something new here! I am a UX/UI designer in North America and probably will never design for a Japanese audience but still very fascinating.
The comments section is disappointing though, it's like most people just completely missed the point of the "cultural nuance" part of your video and are just saying "I prefer is this way and other people are stupid/naive for liking it the other way" smh. I never learn my lesson and expect too much from YT comments every time lol.
I think pretending that we can't judge things is silly. There might be valid reasons that Japan does webdesign in an archaic and unusable way. That doesn't mean it's a good way. Stop pretending all cultures are equal at everything.