Great article.

Covers a lot of the same ground as an article we independently wrote a little while ago about Japanese Style Web Design.
http://www.tokyowebdesigns.com/advice/2124/japanese-style-web-design

To summarize
- Dense text
- Banner Graphics
- Anime Graphics and Icons
- Color Chaos
- Flash Animation
 

ikr! When I’m looking for images for blog posts and such, I know that when I find something on ameblo or something it’s going to be way too tiny :(

lol

ikr

That’s really interesting! And kind of makes sense, too. Hmm, ‘bento aesthetic.’

Have you seen http://www.yahoo.co.jp/ ? It’s like Yahoo, but from 10 years ago.

To be fair, though, Yahoo Japan makes mad bank, and Yahoo America is falling apart, so maybe they understand something we don’t :P

You just told him Santa Claus isn’t real. How could you?

kekekekeke

I have no idea~ :)

Ikr! Gotta get those monks out of their temples and into computer labs.

Great article on this. As I read the first two paragraphs or so, the reason for the amount of text finally clicked haha I’d never thought of it before. I’d also read somewhere that they, meaning Asian cultures in general, prefer a more “compact” view. I think that things could be improving more quickly though since web design has come a far way in the past 5 years or so, and so much more is accomplish-able with so much less work than in the past. Creating a page to display on mobile/PC takes on a fraction of what it once did, and I hope it starts to show. Even with amount of smartphones that Japanese now use, a lot of their websites are even built for mobile online, but can’t even detect a smart phone! It’s a pretty rough spot.

Amazon will occasionally vomit up a huge image of text, complete with image maps, for their big announcements. You can find bad web design anywhere you look for it.

Great point! In that respect: How well/poorly do these Japanese portals and sites work for Japanese visitors? 
There are plenty of Japanese commenting on this article about how they prefer the “Japanese” focus on functionality over being “too smart” with their design. And plenty arguing the opposite, as well, I should note!

“そして、オタクもオサレもどっちもキモいという点では変わりない ”

http://blog.livedoor.jp/dqnplus/archives/1712669.html

Sure, and the topmost image in your post is definitely not pleasing to the eyes for various, universal reasons. I don’t think, however, that there’s anything particularly wrong with the design of the Nico Nico or Rakuten home pages, though. 

Were it my site, would it look like that? Nope! But, I think reaching for “middle ground” in a subjective world like visual aesthetics is how we get uninspired stuff. Like you point out, this is a Japanese aesthetic and to appeal to a different taste is to appeal to…well, a non-Japanese taste. :)

I think we should make a distinction between “aesthetics” and “design”.
What you find visually appealing and what I find visually appealing is a subjective matter.
But design or more accurately “universal design” should appeal to almost everyone.

Universal design theory is based on the concept that anyone, regardless of age, abilities or background should be able to navigate, access and learn a website. It’s not just a matter of helping people with disabilities. Its a design approach that should increase the comfort factor for everybody using a site.
http://designfestival.com/popular-mistakes-in-universal-web-design/

So while I can understand that some Japanese sites might be looking to copy print advertising styles or trying to achieve a certain tone, I really think they have a lot to learn from modern UI and AI theory.

When the Universal design, modern UI and IA are mainly led by English (or Western) speakers, it is not a good idea to assume if ‘the one size fits all’ approach really works everywhere. I agree that finding the least common denominator of what people around the world feel comfortable is a good thing, (and it is also possible that more people will be westernized and prefer those designs in near future) but that is on the middle of the long road. We do not know if the future Universal design would be the same Universal design when, for example, more than half of the active Internet population become combination of Chinese and Indians.

It seems a bit of a stretch to suggest that 6.1% share by IE 6 is driving Japanese web design. As in, that more or less invalidates the argument. I think you are spot on with the influence of keitai though, and that probably explains the majority of it without any need to bring in IE 6…

the typical japanese website looks more 1996ish :)

Of course it’s superficial – we’re talking about the way something looks :p

many chinese major websites are waaaaaay more chaotic

It may seem like Japanese design is crap, but that’s not really true. Sure, many Japanese sites look like crap, especially the big corporate sites, and mobile sites. There are many reasons why this is, and at the end of the day it makes total sense. They’re trying to attract a very large audience on thousands of different devices and setups, which makes compatibility and user experience a much bigger problem than whether a header should have a gradient or not.

Another big reason why they look like they do is because it sells, and it sells like butter. The whole advertisement culture in Japan is really something else. It’s screaming, colorful, wacky and in many cases plain ugly. But it sells, and therefore it affects all kinds of media. Personally I often find myself appreciating that and prefer it to sites that are trying to sell and be clean at the same time. Most of the time that just ends up looking half-assed.

And as a web developer myself, even though I don’t normally use Flash, that’s really not something to bash on. Flash is a really good tool and most of the time you probably don’t even realize when it’s being used. What we see now instead, is web developers (sadly including myself) trying to emulate Flash using other tools that aren’t as developed, and it just doesn’t look as good, it’s not just there yet.

Lastly, among web designers especially, Japanese web design is actually very well-known. Anyone who has bought a book for web design inspiration should’ve noticed the countless Japanese designs that are, compared to many others, extremely technologically challenging because of the creative thinking that goes on behind it. It doesn’t always add up to something useful, but that’s how you win prizes.

;)

Like your article. Especially with the IE6 and IE7 paragraph.

As a web designer/code with Japs as customers, they really want IE6 and later on if they find out that the website that you make is not IE6 compatible, they yell!
To tell the truth, many big companies still use IE6. Its just because their IT people only made their specific intranet sites compatible with IE6 and nothing else. Kinda like the activex only shitty web cams.

I use to be an Art Director for an American national newsstand magazine. All those bento box layouts are because some researcher in the late 1980s “discovered” that readers liked their information broken up into small, bite-size pieces – um, just like bento! We had to redesign our layouts and editorial content to meet these new findings. *Sigh* I guess the plague still is running its course.

I always see people in Japanese media using flip phones. I know you said the most popular phone now is the iPhone, but what do people that don’t use them use? Do they have smartphones and android, or just the flip phones?

As someone who grew up in the East and the West, I would argue that Japanese web aesthetics isn’t stuck in 2003, but has developed in a way Japanese people expect and like.

I decided to write a much longer response to this article on my blog comparing the information density and aesthetic in Japan v.s. the West.

I know it’s a little late, but here is it:

http://www.sushi-suzuki.com/sushilog/2012/05/sense-of-beauty-and-information-density-east-v-s-west/