5 ms·

I am pretty sure you could write the same article with the roles reversed. That in itself does of course not take away from the article, but I am catching some

I am pretty sure you could write the same article with the roles reversed. That in itself does of course not take away from the article, but I am catching some negative undertones how Japan is "behind" or "unable to change" because of their society. I guess you could even open the bottomless barell of a discussion about racism, but my point is just this: Seeing "them" as "behind" is a bad way to think about it and prevents true understanding. Family staffed restaurants which revenues are 90% regulars remake their website and the agency slabs a 4MB hero image on their "landing page". They of course don't need any of that. Only clicks the website gets are people checking the opening times or showing their friends how grass-roots it is. To literally quote the article "Once a precedent has been set for things looking or behaving a certain way then everybody follows it, regardless of whether there is a better solution." Consider the memes about the weird distorted discolored vector graphics everything tech now has [0]. Consider JIRA managers talking about a 4 second loading target for web pages. We are actually subconsciously aware that "our way" is just as random, weird and wrong, we just like to default to "ours=the way". Fun article - definitely made me think - but IMO the real takeaway is: The Overton window of design is arbitrary and way more influenced by what $IMPORTANT_PERSON said in 2003 than by logic or sense, and we are not there yet. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/starterpacks/comments/jwsagt/big_tech_corporate_artstyle_starter_pack/ https://old.reddit.com/r/starterpacks/comments/jwsagt/big_te...

bourgoin 6y ago
It's funny to me that one could look at these webpages and think they're "behind": https://www.yomiuri.co.jp https://www.yomiuri.co.jp https://okwave.jp https://okwave.jp They load pretty much instantaneously, run few scripts, have no swooshing animations or scroll behavior overriding, elements don't jumble around and rearrange themselves as the page is loading... they are basically just plain text and hyperlinks on a plain background. From my perspective they're lightyears ahead of the state of English-language webpage design. I guess they're behind in the sense that they have declined to incorporate many new bad practices. They're behind like a farmer who doesn't use pesticides, a candy-maker that doesn't use artificial coloring and flavoring, or a gas station that doesn't play ads on a screen at the pump.
- drstewart 6y ago
  It's pretty disingenuous to pretend that those sites the kind of sites that are under discussion here.
  - jhardy54 6y ago
    Feel free to read the article, where those websites are linked as the examples being discussed. Absolutely hilarious comment though. > Go on a safari around some of Japan’s most popular sites and here’s what you can expect to find (see Goo, Rakuten, Yomiuri, NicoNico, OKWave, @cosme, and more): The links, in case you still don't want to read the article: - https://www.goo.ne.jp https://www.goo.ne.jp - https://www.rakuten.co.jp https://www.rakuten.co.jp - https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/ https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/ - https://www.nicovideo.jp https://www.nicovideo.jp - https://okwave.jp/ https://okwave.jp/ - https://www.cosme.net/ https://www.cosme.net/ - https://www.slideshare.net/socialogilvy/top-50-japanese-websites https://www.slideshare.net/socialogilvy/top-50-japanese-webs...
    - skwirl 6y ago
      The article was written seven years ago. What you see now is not necessarily what you would have seen in 2013.
      - nik_0_0 6y ago
        Thank god for Wayback Machine! https://www.goo.ne.jp/ https://www.goo.ne.jp/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131120212107/https://www.goo.ne.jp/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131120212107/https://www.goo.n... Pretty close, same dense pack of information, tiny photos. Seems to check most of the list.
- mattl 6y ago
  Article is 7 years old
  - throw_away 6y ago
ekianjo 6y ago
> Seeing "them" as "behind" is a bad way to think about it and prevents true understanding. So I guess still using Fax Machines to do business in 2020 is not "behind", it's just "different" right? Let's call a cat a cat when we see one.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  I think for 40-something years Japan was held as a futuristic, technologically advanced country in America even after Japan's stagnation and the American consumer tech renaissance of the last 20 years. It's clear to me that people can't accept that America is the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, and has been.
  - brabel 6y ago
    Have you been to Eastern Asia recently? I've just recently travelled from the US to Singapore and I can say the USA is absolutely behind in public infrastructure. Try a crazy modern place like Hong Kong or Shaghai (where I went several years ago, but already had the impression these places are ultramodern compared to US/Europe) and you'll quickly understand what you're saying is incredibly wrong.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      Since when is infrastructure the only metric of technological advancement ? Thats only one of the things you can do with money.
    - akhilcacharya 6y ago
      I wasn't addressing public infrastructure at all, for which the US is definitely behind not only east Asia but a big part of Western Europe too.
- tehnub 6y ago
  From a NYT article [0] about fax machines in Japan. >Handwritten messages have long been a necessity in Japan, where the written language is so complex, with two sets of symbols and 2,000 characters borrowed from Chinese, that keyboards remained impractical until the advent of word processors in the 1980s. Faxes continue to appeal to older Japanese, who often feel uncomfortable with keyboards, experts say. People can write handwritten notes when they order from a restaurant, for example. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-fax-machine-is-anything-but-a-relic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-f...
Jakobeha 6y ago
I can't read the sites, but looking at some of them, I might honestly prefer US websites looking like the Japanese ones instead of the boring, spread-out, slow-loading versions I see today. Even in the author's website. It's not bad per se, and it seems to load fast. But there is more spacing than necessary, and the minimalism makes it look like any other blog.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
majormajor 6y ago
I think there's a temptation to subscribe to a "progress is inevitable and recency is a reflection of quality" view, especially amongst tech-oriented people. I think this is very similar to discussions of payments in the US vs China, with QR codes vs credit cards. Credit cards are old tech now, and so a country building out a ton of infrastructure today has no real reason to follow that path now that there are alternatives. But a country with a ton of infrastructure already built for them also doesn't have much incentive to rip all that out and replace it. So something primarily determined by "what was the state of tech when building out infrastructure for the first time" now gets used to answer a question of "who is a more advanced society?" (Here it's more a question of "what were influential design trends" instead of "when did you build your infrastructure" but that's a similarly arbitrary starting seed, as it were, not a reflection of "progress.")
twic 6y ago
I think that style is Corporate Memphis https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/ https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-l... EDIT or Alegria? https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-gangley-armed-cartoons-are-here-to-protect-you-from-big-tech/ https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-gangley-armed-...
dheera 6y ago
I think they're comparing apples to oranges. If you're looking at Rakuten then compare it to Amazon and eBay which are also pretty cluttered but functional. If you're looking at Yomiuri then compare it to New York Times or CNN or Fox News all of which are pretty cluttered but functional. That minimalist "clean" look isn't a general trend of e-commerce and news sites even in the US, if that is what they are using as a reference point. Japan has no shortage of modern web design either. You just have to be looking in the right places, e.g. This temple https://www.kiyomizudera.or.jp/ https://www.kiyomizudera.or.jp/ This Michelin restaurant http://akiyamashirokane.com/ http://akiyamashirokane.com/ Mazda https://www.mazda.co.jp/ https://www.mazda.co.jp/ This tea house https://www.fukuda-chaya.jp/ https://www.fukuda-chaya.jp/ This startup https://www.kudan.io/jp/ https://www.kudan.io/jp/ This web design dude https://kuon.space/ https://kuon.space/ This startup accelerator https://www.j-startup.go.jp/ https://www.j-startup.go.jp/ This website about traditional Japanese colors https://nipponcolors.com/ https://nipponcolors.com/

bourgoin 6y ago

It's funny to me that one could look at these webpages and think they're "behind": https://www.yomiuri.co.jp https://www.yomiuri.co.jp https://okwave.jp https://okwave.jp They load pretty much instantaneously, run few scripts, have no swooshing animations or scroll behavior overriding, elements don't jumble around and rearrange themselves as the page is loading... they are basically just plain text and hyperlinks on a plain background. From my perspective they're lightyears ahead of the state of English-language webpage design. I guess they're behind in the sense that they have declined to incorporate many new bad practices. They're behind like a farmer who doesn't use pesticides, a candy-maker that doesn't use artificial coloring and flavoring, or a gas station that doesn't play ads on a screen at the pump.

drstewart 6y ago
It's pretty disingenuous to pretend that those sites the kind of sites that are under discussion here.
- jhardy54 6y ago
  Feel free to read the article, where those websites are linked as the examples being discussed. Absolutely hilarious comment though. > Go on a safari around some of Japan’s most popular sites and here’s what you can expect to find (see Goo, Rakuten, Yomiuri, NicoNico, OKWave, @cosme, and more): The links, in case you still don't want to read the article: - https://www.goo.ne.jp https://www.goo.ne.jp - https://www.rakuten.co.jp https://www.rakuten.co.jp - https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/ https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/ - https://www.nicovideo.jp https://www.nicovideo.jp - https://okwave.jp/ https://okwave.jp/ - https://www.cosme.net/ https://www.cosme.net/ - https://www.slideshare.net/socialogilvy/top-50-japanese-websites https://www.slideshare.net/socialogilvy/top-50-japanese-webs...
  - skwirl 6y ago
    The article was written seven years ago. What you see now is not necessarily what you would have seen in 2013.
    - nik_0_0 6y ago
      Thank god for Wayback Machine! https://www.goo.ne.jp/ https://www.goo.ne.jp/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131120212107/https://www.goo.ne.jp/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131120212107/https://www.goo.n... Pretty close, same dense pack of information, tiny photos. Seems to check most of the list.
mattl 6y ago
Article is 7 years old
- throw_away 6y ago

ekianjo 6y ago

> Seeing "them" as "behind" is a bad way to think about it and prevents true understanding. So I guess still using Fax Machines to do business in 2020 is not "behind", it's just "different" right? Let's call a cat a cat when we see one.

akhilcacharya 6y ago
I think for 40-something years Japan was held as a futuristic, technologically advanced country in America even after Japan's stagnation and the American consumer tech renaissance of the last 20 years. It's clear to me that people can't accept that America is the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, and has been.
- brabel 6y ago
  Have you been to Eastern Asia recently? I've just recently travelled from the US to Singapore and I can say the USA is absolutely behind in public infrastructure. Try a crazy modern place like Hong Kong or Shaghai (where I went several years ago, but already had the impression these places are ultramodern compared to US/Europe) and you'll quickly understand what you're saying is incredibly wrong.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Since when is infrastructure the only metric of technological advancement ? Thats only one of the things you can do with money.
  - akhilcacharya 6y ago
    I wasn't addressing public infrastructure at all, for which the US is definitely behind not only east Asia but a big part of Western Europe too.
tehnub 6y ago
From a NYT article [0] about fax machines in Japan. >Handwritten messages have long been a necessity in Japan, where the written language is so complex, with two sets of symbols and 2,000 characters borrowed from Chinese, that keyboards remained impractical until the advent of word processors in the 1980s. Faxes continue to appeal to older Japanese, who often feel uncomfortable with keyboards, experts say. People can write handwritten notes when they order from a restaurant, for example. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-fax-machine-is-anything-but-a-relic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/world/asia/in-japan-the-f...

Jakobeha 6y ago

I can't read the sites, but looking at some of them, I might honestly prefer US websites looking like the Japanese ones instead of the boring, spread-out, slow-loading versions I see today. Even in the author's website. It's not bad per se, and it seems to load fast. But there is more spacing than necessary, and the minimalism makes it look like any other blog.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

majormajor 6y ago

I think there's a temptation to subscribe to a "progress is inevitable and recency is a reflection of quality" view, especially amongst tech-oriented people. I think this is very similar to discussions of payments in the US vs China, with QR codes vs credit cards. Credit cards are old tech now, and so a country building out a ton of infrastructure today has no real reason to follow that path now that there are alternatives. But a country with a ton of infrastructure already built for them also doesn't have much incentive to rip all that out and replace it. So something primarily determined by "what was the state of tech when building out infrastructure for the first time" now gets used to answer a question of "who is a more advanced society?" (Here it's more a question of "what were influential design trends" instead of "when did you build your infrastructure" but that's a similarly arbitrary starting seed, as it were, not a reflection of "progress.")

twic 6y ago

I think that style is Corporate Memphis https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-look-so-similar-these-days/ https://qz.com/quartzy/1728767/why-editorial-illustrations-l... EDIT or Alegria? https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-gangley-armed-cartoons-are-here-to-protect-you-from-big-tech/ https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-gangley-armed-...

dheera 6y ago

I think they're comparing apples to oranges. If you're looking at Rakuten then compare it to Amazon and eBay which are also pretty cluttered but functional. If you're looking at Yomiuri then compare it to New York Times or CNN or Fox News all of which are pretty cluttered but functional. That minimalist "clean" look isn't a general trend of e-commerce and news sites even in the US, if that is what they are using as a reference point. Japan has no shortage of modern web design either. You just have to be looking in the right places, e.g. This temple https://www.kiyomizudera.or.jp/ https://www.kiyomizudera.or.jp/ This Michelin restaurant http://akiyamashirokane.com/ http://akiyamashirokane.com/ Mazda https://www.mazda.co.jp/ https://www.mazda.co.jp/ This tea house https://www.fukuda-chaya.jp/ https://www.fukuda-chaya.jp/ This startup https://www.kudan.io/jp/ https://www.kudan.io/jp/ This web design dude https://kuon.space/ https://kuon.space/ This startup accelerator https://www.j-startup.go.jp/ https://www.j-startup.go.jp/ This website about traditional Japanese colors https://nipponcolors.com/ https://nipponcolors.com/