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I asked the same question of a Japanese web developer friend a decade ago, since Japanese sites (at least, back then) were very similar. The answer he gave mad
by gozur88 11y ago
I asked the same question of a Japanese web developer friend a decade ago, since Japanese sites (at least, back then) were very similar. The answer he gave made sense.
He said the reason Japanese websites were so busy was the greater percentage of mobile-only customers, many of whom weren't using smartphones. You could go to a website on your cheap "feature phone" and still comfortably navigate a site that was mostly a sea of links, while the sort of site you see more commonly in the West requires navigating too many pages.
Smart phone penetration in China is still around 50%, so I wouldn't be surprised if the same logic applies.
EDIT: He also said in Japan programmers have about the same social status as the guy on the loading dock, so many of the corporate sites were programmed by fresh-out-of-college guys who would be passing that task off to someone else as soon as possible. Not sure if the same applies in China.
- shalmanese 11y agoSmartphone penetration is up to 73% by now: http://www.nielsen.com/cn/en/press-room/2015/Nielsen-Chinese-Smartphone-Market-Now-Driven-by-Upgrading-EN.html http://www.nielsen.com/cn/en/press-room/2015/Nielsen-Chinese... and is above 85% in urban areas. The article seems to take an American bias with this by looking only at desktop websites. China primarily consumes the internet through mobile apps and top tier mobile apps (Wechat, Baidu Maps, Didi Kuadi, Dianping, Ele.me) appear to be designed no more or less busy than comparable Western ones.
- gozur88 11y agoOdd. This one says 50.9%. That's quite a large difference. http://www.statista.com/statistics/257045/smartphone-user-penetration-in-china/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/257045/smartphone-user-pe...
- contingencies 11y agoMy current estimate (living here, and not just in urban locations, for 15 years) is >95% of adults (10-45) in urban areas, >75% rural. But the busy design thing far predates the smartphone, so that theory is moot in my mind. I concur with krang's comment: "Chinese sites are simply modeled after 90s and 2000s web sites". This does not imply it's not changing though .. smart TV and mobile apps look the same as you'd expect in the west.
- shalmanese 11y agoThe site estimated growth would be just 5% over 2 years whereas it was really 33%.