The Internet has changed fundamentally over the years. In the past, if you had to keep your fingers crossed to have the latest Flash Player installed in your browser to be greeted by a cacophony of oversaturated GIFs and unusual fonts, a minimalistic web design has now established itself. Clear colors, a few columns, the most important information and a selected image as the focal point dominate current web pages, in line with a deliberate distance from the overload of stimuli. At least in countries with Western-influenced culture.
A look to the east — towards China, Japan and South Korea in particular — promises a completely different picture. Websites that are much fuller, perhaps even cluttered for our understanding: A formal explosion of colors and icons; product ads that are decorated with dazzling, digital gold medals and, in principle, this design seems more like what we know from the weekly supermarket brochures. What is the reason, you must ask yourself, because backwardness will not be the reason, as China is regarded as a prime example of digitization and Japan (in many respects) as a technological high culture. The answer is therefore much more complex than presenting Eastern websites as a lost relic of a former Internet.
Accordingly, we took a look at why web design varies so much and to what extent it could be an expression of cultural psychology. Not only to be able to exchange one's own cultural glasses, but also with a view to what extent an understanding of these differences promotes multinational organizations and facilitates access to other target groups.
Design and writing systems
Starting with the basics: It is impossible to reduce the design differences between East and West to a singular feature. Rather, you encounter a holistic interplay of various small factors, some of which are quite obvious, but others are more hidden. The difference between Western and Eastern writing systems, for example, is quite obvious here. Japan, China and South Korea all use logographic Writing systems: A system in which linguistic expressions are represented by characters instead of the letters used here. When a western audience finds Eastern web design cluttered, Do you have to confess, of coursethat this is also due to a lack of understanding of logography. This also extends to typography: A fundamental component of these are so-called glyphs, i.e. different representations of a letter; A — a — a For example, they are all different glyphs. Now when you consider that our alphabetical writing system has around 4,000 glyphs, but a logographic one has around 70,000, it is understandable that this could be a bit much for Western perception. A limitation that also entails fewer fonts and, of course, also has an effect on web design.
A fundamental cultural difference?
An argument which came up frequently during our research, read: A look at Shibuya, for example, would already provide insight into why the Eastern Internet is so Baroque. Where bright neon signs and constantly shimmering advertisements — somewhere between crowds and body chaos — make up the tumultuous Tokyo district. It's no wonder that this is also being transferred to the Internet, they say. A quite baseless observation, of course, as everyone who has already played a round at Times Square, Piccadilly Circus or even the Reeperbahn certainly knows. As a result, it can't really be, but it just drifts past another cultural difference, namely that of the general presentation of information (which we'll get to in a moment).
Hardware could also play an important role here. At least in Japan, though not East Asia in general, websites are still largely designed for PCs instead of smartphones and are also designed with older people in mind. However, Japan is a special case in this case anyway, as the smartphone revolution there took place approx. 10 years in front of the rest of the world, but also with different models that lasted a very long time. So when we adapted our Internet to the cool, new, hot iPhone, Japan simply suspended this step. It just wasn't necessary. Respectable.
However, it must be stated quite bluntly that people in East generally prefer more information-rich product ads and ask for more information before actually buying something, while in the West, people rate higher on how the product makes you feel or how much it improves your life. This has long been verified in cultural studies. Of course, this is also reflected in the respective web design. A good example of this would be the common ones in Japan Shokuhin-Sanpuru: Imitated plastic or wax food in front of restaurants, which represent the restaurant menu so that customers can make an informed choice. On the contrary, think of fast-food advertisements on display, which show a very idealized version of the €2 burger, completely contrary to the sluggish end result that you actually get handed over. The aesthetic element here also represents a cultural difference like Douglass McGowan noticed. In Japanese, there is a noteworthy term for this called “yokubari” — in German as much as “greed,” but without any stigma; a neutral term for the thirst for information in this regard. Minimal web design like in the West may be aesthetically appealing in this context, but it would still arouse distrust because you don't Yokubaru (verb form of yokubari) can operate. Product quality and operational expertise would be called into question under minimal design. Of course, this not only results in differences in marketing, but also indicates that information should not be hidden in Eastern culture. For Westerners, this could of course be confusing, because to put it bluntly: Who has time for that?
Holistic and analytical thinking
That is actually the wrong question. It would be more appropriate to be too slow in this regard in the West! Because that seems to be the case... more or less. At least, various studies have investigated a concise difference in Eastern and Western thought behavior, which also explains how web design differs from a cultural-psychological point of view. This means holistic and analytical thinking. cognition patterns that describe our own information processing and also their cultural background, Namely as follows:
So far, so logical. Presented in a more practical way, this would mean, for example, that in the case of a kitchen table, for example, Western people would rather emphasize the nature of it — material, appearance, workmanship, etc. — while Eastern people would rather describe an overall presentation, for example as a social gathering place to eat, often in conjunction with chairs and crockery. Hopefully, it goes without saying that none of these ways of thinking is explicitly better, but simply different. A study in Personality and Social Psychology Journal put forward the thesis that product advertising in Asia is more information-dense due to holistic thinking, and also tested this using web design as an example:
Given previous findings, we assume that in general, visual cultural products of East Asians will be information-rich. Instead of clearly differentiating between focal/content and peripheral/contextual pieces of information, the holistic orientation embraces the idea that everything is equally important and embedded in the whole context. East Asians will thus find it difficult to separate target information from peripheral information, and to separate details from the main message. In contrast, North Americans' analytical orientation makes their cultural products simpler and more organized, so that they selectively focus on salient, vivid, and core information while ignoring overly contextual or detailed information. The message of analytic thought embraces the idea that each object and person is self-contained and independent.
This study confirms assumptions that are also based on the results of a further investigation in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin agree. In this study, visual perception was analyzed, and it was found that Western people observe more detail-oriented, while Eastern people perceive a more comprehensive overall picture. It is also exciting to mention here a study in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, which investigated the extent to which cultural-psychological thinking manifests itself aesthetically. Various country paintings, photographs and websites were examined. In the case of paintings, for example, it was attested that East Asian works tend to set the horizon higher, which, although losing depth of focus, presents more contextual information; Western artists did this the other way around.
More than that: In another test, East Asian and American student amateurs were commissioned to create a landscape painting, where these artistic tendencies could be identified once again. The horizon line was generally placed higher among East Asian students and saturated with more contextual information. The conclusion is therefore that cultural psychology correlates directly with cultural products and works of art, including web design, advertising and the like. Unexpected? Already. Exciting? But hello.
In conclusion, the reasons for different online design cannot be reduced to a single attribute, but can be traced back to diverse, cultural motivations. One thing is certain: Web design doesn't even have to justify its identity, because, as should be clear by now, it is an expression of a collective mentality that you should recognize even if it irritates your own aesthetic sensibility. Anything else would be boring too. As is well known, you go with the target group. 😉 And as is so often the case: Perhaps these differences can also be used to find inspiration or joint nominators for the design of the future, as cultural exchange fortunately so often requires.
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