Transcription

Japanese website design. They're kind of funky, but they work. Here's why. These two are both Yahoo's. One is from Japan and one is from America. This is the same website that both serves the same purpose, but why do they look so different? This doesn't just stop at Yahoo. It's 2024. We've got AI, VR, goofy looking cars. Why the heck does this still exist? Some amazing videos have covered the culture part of it, but I'm wondering how does psychology impact website design? Why do some innovations take so long in Japan? And how might all of this impact us? In a low context society, we're trained. And we all see the world through cultural glasses. This video is not to generalize Western or Japanese culture. This is purely based on my own opinions and research. So let's dive into the design psychology of Japanese websites. Turns out this weird design in Japan is necessary. Why is that? Well, complexity is necessary because of one concept. Anshin is the term often used when describing a service or a product experience that won't hide any unwanted surprise. So fundamentally it's reassurance. And this is actually backed up by research. You might've heard of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. And this framework aims to understand the relationship between culture and behavior. It's split into six parts. And one of which is uncertainty avoidance. In this study, the US had a score of 46 while Japan scored much higher with a score of 89. Because of that, to cater a website design to a Japanese audience, it's actually very important to put as much information on the page as possible. Because more information means more trust, which means less uncertainty. But here's the thing. We see complexity, not just on Japanese websites. Take a look at this student ordering food at a Japanese cafeteria. Wow, Japan is so safe. If you look closely, all the food is priced under $5, making it affordable for all students. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Can we go back? Is that the menu? I mean, forget the menus we see every day with simple text and the occasional pictures. The menu here has a photo for every single item along with its name, the price, another photo on top and a separate panel, probably for the ingredients or allergy notes. But ordering from this menu, I feel very reassured, very certain as to exactly what I'm gonna get. Dude, I'm already hungry all the time. If I saw this menu at every restaurant, it's over. Okay, we also wanna be reassured, but can't simplicity mean reassurance? I mean, just point me directly to what I'm trying to find. This is where it will help to understand low versus high context cultures. So in a low context society, we believe that good, effective, professional communication is a communication that's very explicit, that's very simple and very clear. Let's say your neighbor has a kid who plays piano at 2 a.m. every night, causing you to lose sleep. In a low context culture such as America, you might knock on their door and say, yo, I can't sleep because your kid plays piano at 2 a.m. every single night, please stop. That would be low context culture, very straightforward to the point. In a high context society, we believe good, effective communication is a communication that's more implicit or layered or nuanced. So back to the piano kid example, if you were in Japan, a high context culture, you might approach your neighbor the next day, casually walk across them and say, hey, your kid plays piano really well. So let's be real here. In both cases, you want the kid to shut the meow, but in a high context environment, this delivery is more nuanced and the neighbor would still understand this as a request to be quiet. That explains why so many Japanese websites seem to be around the bush. It's really just a mix of the need for reassurance by giving you as much information as possible and high context delivery. And this phenomenon is not just in Japan. We see this in Chinese softwares, for example, Taobao, similar to Amazon and Didi Dache, comparable to Uber. These softwares prioritize information even at the expense of a cleaner user interface. I mean, I remember visiting China when I was using Didi Dache. I was given the option to go through different drivers in order to find one at the best price point. Let me tell you, I was a bit confused, but I was very reassured. The screen basically told me that, girl, you're gonna get your car because there's a bajillion drivers out there. Okay, I still don't get it. Isn't it just convenient to keep things simple? Don't people just wanna save time? Well, my dear, convenience might mean something completely different to a Japanese user versus an American user. Let me explain. We can actually ask this question to Rikki, Amazon UX designer who's worked in Japan for over 10 years. Rikki found that the Japanese user often measures convenience by the amount of inconvenience they avoid causing to others rather than solely the time or effort saved for themselves. Let's say you're at McDonald's. You're using Apple Pay to get your McFlurries and fries. The American user might be like, this is super convenient. My wallet is lighter. I'm carrying less coins. When I tap, I don't even feel like I'm spending money. If you're a Japanese user, you might think, Apple Pay is very convenient because it helps me not hold up the line for other people. I don't have to fumble through my coins, make everyone wait. Apple Pay helps me help other people. This concept is called Taijin Kyoufushou, and there's actually countless research behind it. Taijin Kyoufushou is characterized by an intense fear that one's body parts or functions displease, embarrass, or are offensive to others. And it actually has real psychological effects. Participants with higher Taijin Kyoufushou was significantly associated with high levels of anxiety symptoms, the strongest correlation being with social phobia. It's not that Japanese people don't value convenience. It's that convenience means something different for different cultures. It doesn't stop there. Ricky actually made an even more interesting point. When people go onto these websites, they actually want to have a gentle user experience. What does that mean? In user experience design, we have this term called friction, which is basically how easy or hard it is for a user to get from point A to point B. Let's say you install Snapchat and you're trying to create an account. If it takes you 10 different steps, five different forms, and 20 different buttons to create an account, that's high friction. But if you install Snapchat, create an account with one click and start snapping right away, then that is low friction. Ricky found that when designing for Amazon in Japan, he actually had to redesign the entire user journey, creating slightly more friction by providing more information to the customers. And this extra friction is not a problem at all if it means more information, because it's found that East Asian audiences can navigate through complex information faster. East Asians were faster than North Americans in dealing with information on mock webpages with large amounts of information. Don't believe it? Well, let me tell you a story. A few months ago, I studied abroad in Kyoto, Japan. And during that time, I made a few friends through Brazilian jiu-jitsu. One day, I was talking to Hatsumi-san. I remember that day we were using Google Translate, trying really hard to have a conversation. And when Hatsumi-san was typing on her phone, I noticed that the Japanese keyboard did not show all of the characters. I mean, it makes sense. The keyboard cannot fit all of the katakana, and kanji characters, but it did this really smart thing where it hid characters within a character. I just remember Hatsumi-san vigorously typing with her fingers going so fast. Even though there was a lot going on on the keyboard, she did not have problems at all. So in Japan, for the sake of a gentle user experience, if more information means higher friction, that's okay. But you know, this still doesn't explain why these websites look so outdated. Why do some innovations just take so long in Japan? One other reason is how Japan treats software as second class. Because Japanese manufacturers still held power in Japan over the last 30 years, there was this bias that hardware is first class, because unlike software, it was something that you could see and touch. Don't get me wrong. Japan has really cool, crazy innovations, like hyper-fast shinkansen trains, or those famous water-spraying toilets. It might just be that the focus on innovation is on hardware instead of software. Also, adopting new website designs, new processes, new tools takes time, especially in a culture that avoids uncertainty. Because so much planning and structure needs to happen, this can mean that it just takes longer for new things to come up. If it ain't broke, why fix it? But even if Japan culturally is a society averse to change, it has changed quite a lot within the past five, 10, 20 years. And this change actually impacts all of us. So now there are Japanese websites that are designed in a way where we are used to seeing, simple, clean, and modern. However, now you know why many sites still look like this. Next time you visit a website or use a product, think of why it's designed in that way, from a cultural perspective. I invite all of us to consume content with culture and psychology in mind. What age are they trying to target? What religion? What gender? What culture? Because understanding the design behind websites will help us all become less emotionally reactive. If you're a designer, please, please design with culture in mind. I mean, at the end of the day, to better work with everyone around us, we must understand diverse perspectives and ideas. Let's stay curious and keep learning. Like this video is just the tip of the iceberg of cultural psychology. The author of Sapien says this well, the idea of progress is built on the notion that if we admit our ignorance and invest resources and research, things can improve. With that, have a lovely day.