why Japan's internet is weirdly designed

[@answerinprogress]

I hope you liked that video - it took 2.5 months to make. If you want to support us making more videos like this, consider supporting us on patreon 💛: www.patreon.com/answerinprogress

[@vjay4297]

DARK MODE due to time zone MAY BE A REASON for certain bias

[@lilolucille956]

The 2.5 month were worth it. I really like the video. Well done 👍🏻

[@Chris-P.-Bacon-III]

I just discovered your channel and you give off Michael Reeves energy... and that's a good thing! I vibe with it Delightful to watch the whole way through, keep doin whatever it is you're doin 😁

[@andrewme1884]

japanese not only has chinese characters (kanji) but also hirigana and katakana. Korean also has hangul

[@silversavage5993]

This was a great video I didn't know I needed to watch! Super excited to follow for more content 🌞

[@ct230r]

I am a front-end web engineer in Japan. Most websites in Japan are generally built using a CMS like WordPress. Japanese people want very detailed information, whether it is a product sales site or a content business site. If they cannot get detailed information, they will not buy the product or service. Also, if the information on the website is incorrect, there will be complaints, and companies are very afraid of that. As a result, they create very text-heavy Web pages. For Japanese people, it is important to have a lot of information and accurate content, no matter what device they use to connect to the Internet.

[@Archgeek0]

I for one quite respect that information density. 'Makes it much easier to actually get what you're there for instead of scrolling past massive content-free images of product shells or rich kids posing with products. There's just something about having most of the information you might care about on screen at once without scrolling, and knowing where a page ends instead of an unceasing feed primed to devour frightening amounts of precious irrecoverable time that's so much nicer. Same with the greater discoverabilty of non-hidden page controls.

[@romibajwa7153]

🤓

[@mariom3081]

She talks about it in the video by the end.

[@hankscorpio42069]

@@mariom3081 She briefly touches on risk-aversion but @ct230r actually takes the time to explain why Japanese sites are so text heavy and that falls under cultural reasons, which is one of the causes that Sabrina dismissed. Still, the effort she went to graph website visual clutter based on country was impressive.

[@mariartorres]

Soooo culture does matter and is, in fact, an important element of website design

[@Sleeping_inthe_sky]

As a Japanese person born and raised in the United States, I remember being weirded out every time I visited my cousins and saw them accessing the internet on their flip phones. And this was in 2007. It makes sense now- Japan’s webpages were optimized for tools like flip phones and old computers… I think

[@cadenvphoto]

That's insane! Really, really cool!

[@Tamaki742]

I mean most people are just using the common smartphones now, but also, this is the country that's still using the traditional fax machine and just recently decided to phase out diskettes and mini CDs, so yeah. I also remember going to Osaka not too long ago and saw a restaurant still using Windows '98.

[@HappyGick]

@@Tamaki742 They have an entirely different culture. They don't seem to have the consumerism culture that the west has. That's probably why they don't really mind the design all that much.

[@commonomics]

@@HappyGick Japan is very much just as consumerist and capitalist as any western country. The differences are negligible. It’s so odd that people think the west is weirdly corrupt and eastern traditions are so pure/honorable. Everyone is competing for the same resources.

[@Tamaki742]

@@commonomics whoops sorry I mistakenly replied to your comment instead of the other guy

[@krissydiggs]

As a person living in Japan and a worker in Japan I think probably there’s a bit of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude at play too. The company I work for uses SHOCKINGLY old internet technology to do business, and it’s a big company. There’s no need to change it, it seems, because it works well enough for them. Though as a person coming from the west it’s a nightmare to navigate (especially in Japanese). As a designer I’ve always been fascinated by this phenomena so I appreciate you doing all this legwork about it!

[@majibento]

“As a liver”

[@asdkotable]

What is it like as a liver in Japan? I imagine it's not too different from being a liver in other parts of the world.

[@TokyoXtreme]

I’m a pancreas myself.

[@auliamate]

japan, the nation pushing the envelope in terms of technology, in robotics, in design, and beyond, likes to use old stuff. now that's what we call far ahead

[@XeclipseXZ]

Haha same here. Foreigner living in Japan, working in an electronics company but they are still using, ibm notes which isn’t even supported anymore by ibm

[@ryusaw_]

As a Japanese person, I find this content very interesting. It is often said that "being easy to understand and simple does not lead to purchasing" in Japan. Of course, it depends on the subject. In some places, there are concepts such as Zen spirit. In Japan, where people use multiple characters: kanji, katakana, hiragana, and sometimes the alphabet, we control the density of information by using different characters. Many Japanese use these different characters to quickly locate necessary information in a vast amount of text or to grasp the general content of a text. This act is more akin to looking at a picture than reading a text. As one can see in large cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, there is a flood of information. If you go there, you will understand why Japanese web design has not changed. Anyway, we remain thoroughly chaotic, outdated, and incomprehensible. But it is fun, so please come to Japan and experience it for yourself.

[@harumayxwataru]

I really agree with you. I've been learning Japanese for ten years (翻訳者でーす！) and I really enjoy the reading sensation I get with kanji. When I read in alphabet (FR, EN, ES...), I unconsciously spell out all of the words in my mind and the reading is totally linear. While with Japanese the words jump into my brain, if that makes sense. When I read a book, names jump to the surface before I even read the sentence; when it's newspapers, the katakana name of a company or figures stand out. It's a whole new sensation!

[@Fauxkerykes]

Japan is the only other country I would feel ok visiting... And want to visit.

[@sherifsherif2832]

I'm in Nigeria, I will like to be there...

[@JoshKurien]

Just moved to your country sir, and my goodness... It is all true

[@infinite101_]

that last line lmaooo

[@mugi_shi]

Hello from Japan! I'm only 14 years old, so I didn't know the history of the Internet in Japan. So I was thinking that the Japanese internet just hasn't evolved since the 90s. My English isn't that good, so I may be mistaken, but I want to thank KZbin's algorithm, this channel, and the sponsors for showing me this interesting video!

[@jaymeselliot8181]

I think you are right, Japan to me seems like its still living in the 1990's aesthetically speaking. I think its so cool, makes for such cool vibes.

[@catdango6079]

hi! we're the same age :D

[@juggler879]

why you so cute?

[@MetsukiR]

I just want to say, your English is very good.

[@stakamaka]

damn, you speak like a native speaker with proper use of commas

[@guyn8777]

I worked as a software engineer at one of the top internet sites in Japan for 6 years (one of the companies featured in a screen cap in this video). All the foreign developers constantly clamored for redesigns to a simpler, cleaner site. But time after time after time, user tests grossly favored the old, cluttered designs, so they stuck. It’s a cultural thing by now; everybody’s used to it here in Japan so there’s little chance of it changing anytime soon.

[@RonaldReagan84]

That's good, I prefer the older designs and I know I'm not the only one. It reminds me of when I began using the web in 2004-05

[@gh0s1wav]

That's what I'm thinking. Felt like she kind of completely skipped over culture...but I guess alot of it's development doesn't have be explained through a cultural lens.

[@amarujuancoiz4287]

"everybody’s used to it here in Japan so there’s little chance of it changing anytime soon". Couldn't that apply to many things in Japan in general?

[@hortehighwind8651]

I really dislike the material UI looks that in now, pls give back denser sites

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@gh0s1wav She did admit that she wasn't really qualified to analyze it the question from that perspective. Perhaps Taha (her colleague) could take a shot at it since that's more his wheel house.

[@rizkytanrian6092]

As a UI/UX and web designer in Japan, I can tell you based on my experience is that many of the reasons are due to the many Japanese companies are obliged to print everything as it is required by the law, or they’re afraid that someone will make a claim if they didn’t write it clear enough, and there’s something about the language that makes writing a formal sentence seems longer (yes short and smart catchphrase exist, but it only act as a welcome, if you want to mean a business in Japan, you have to write everything). In the graphic design side, yes Japanese characters just like Chinese are rather larger and have more details than Latin letters, so they have less options in fonts and you can’t have a too small font or smaller details of the characters may not be visible hence making it indistinguishable with other characters. But back to culture, does culture affect this a lot? Yes, because often times the companies tends to provide most information possible to avoid customer claims that are dreaded by Japanese business, and some law that also made in order to avoid those claims. One of my friend who studied Japanese social capital mentioned that Japanese people, despite of its welcoming and harmonious attitude actually have a low trust and very suspicious of others (or in this case a website). A website that does not provide detailed information often gets avoided, and on it also made worse by the fact that many Japanese business actually plays in grey area in a very unfair manner, often time they will trick you with colorful or encouraging title, but makes the fine print complicated to exploit you, even big companies that people used most of the time (several greatest offenders are mobile network, insurance, housing, etc), now imagine if they don’t write the fine print… a society where people don’t usually voice their opinion will tends to just be quiet when exploited, would instead be extra careful to choose website with more information than less, and when they voice their opinion they would be gets too petty that the company would instead write the details to avoid that. It is that circular relationship in Japan that shape the country’s website. Ah and why they avoid dark and not-dense? Maybe it is the Japanese design aesthetic that in scenario where they finally want to make a minimal website, a black on white is the most popular choice, or a soft gradation with low contrast, perhaps some dull color palette are what considered to be stylish, chic and even elegant in Japan.

[@asdfghjjhgf]

Simply, most Japanese people feel more familiar with Japanese-style websites. Western websites are considered "気取っている"

[@lamer8310]

wow thank you for this insight

[@icerepublic]

Super super interesting to read. I also wondered a lot why this is. Here in Germany, Japanese websites are also absolutely famous for looking extremely complicated and weird. Of course there's the script which looks very complicated to us. But I also had the feeling there was a lot more to this. Thanks also from me for giving this detailed insight. 👍👍👍

[@Arc_Soma2639]

@@asdfghjjhgf Like kidoru, faking it?

Honestly the comments have been more informative than the video.

[@ありんこ-d6m]

Japanese here living in Japan. Very interesting. You said that google is the search engine used around the world, but in Japan, yahoo was so strong that it was the more dominant search engine for a while (now no longer of course and everyone uses google to search, but yahoo is still prominent and many people still uses an yahoo email account, not gmail). I remember the younger generation had moved onto google but older generation was still using yahoo to search. Maybe this is also partly the reason?

[@RiverReeves23]

I believe that is partially the reason yes, because Yahoo's web design never changed. I personally believe this has more to do with Japan being cut off from the rest of the world, than anything else.

[@CKM522]

I’m American and my mom has a yahoo email

[@QuorumOssifrage]

Master of UX here. As a part of my certification, I took a class with an expert who did UX work in Japan and Korea. The overwhelming response that was given to her was that minimalistic webpages didn't seem to have the information that they wanted, even when the information they wanted was there. There seemed to be a perception that minimalistic design was a dumbing down of a website. Even when steps were taken to keep the amount of information the same on a redesign, this perception persisted. This perception was common in 2016 (when I took my certification), but even then Japan was moving closer to the rest of the world. Nowadays Japanese websites seem a lot more diverse than they used to be: still having cluttered and dense websites, while also having more and more minimalistic websites every year. Also it has been a minute since 2016 or since I've done any serious UX work, so let me know if I've made any mistakes or if anything changed.

[@phuonglinhnguyenngoc8934]

I am not sure if it has changed. But regarding you point on the need for more and more information, the document briefly shown in this video (14:10) backed up that point: "Japanese people tend to require more information before reaching a purchasing decision. So for printed brochures, it is standard practice for Japanese companies to create one-text heavy version for the Japanese domestic market and another "rest of the world" version [...] Often the Japanese domestic version goes into more technical or product detail because that reflects the culture's consideration and buying process. The non-Japan version focuses more on user benefits [...] In Japan, on the other hand, specifications play an important role in selling the experience."

[@rwall514]

Japan was correct to shun minimalism. Give me the information. Give it to me right now.

[@natescape]

It's amazing how impactful simple screen location patterns are, the feeling of something being where it's expected is so important to people

[@BoredDan7]

@@rwall514 Cramming more information into a smaller space doesn't give you more information. In fact if you clutter information too much it's harder to parse. If you want your information and you want it right now then having a well designed, well layed out, well spaced design with minimal distraction is ideal.

[@randomviewer3494]

@@BoredDan7 A designer needs to think about the content on the screen. Sure, making a dense website might be harder than just adding empty spaces everywhere. But a good dense design is so much faster to work with and so much better. Replacing information with empty spaces or hiding it behind buttons always requires more interaction before you get what you needed.

[@cherenkov_blue]

"This is a tricky one, because I was a STEM student, so I don't have a lot of the necessary domain knowledge... However, being a STEM student also means that _that didn't stop me from trying."_ Yeah, this is accurate. I cannot count the amount of times I have gone down a rabbit hole as a result of finding an interesting question and then going "Wait, shit, I have no idea how to approach this."

[@quartzintherough]

This is a real egg-or-chicken situation. Are us STEM students the embodiment of hubris, curiosity, and stubbornness because these aspects develop among people who study the rules of reality, or did we pursue STEM in the first place because it enabled these quirks in the first place ?

[@SkitariiAlpha]

Oh hey you look familiar

[@Kkubey]

​@@quartzintherough It also depends on where in the world you studied. I saw a lot of "money boys" in my lectures and practices. Those who try to outwardly overperform and make everything about themself look good but they have actually got very little idea of how things work and don't even want to know.

[@Arcticstar0]

@@quartzintherough are you trying to start another trip down a rabbit hole?

[@livedandletdie]

Well, as long as you are a STEM student, you're an actual Student. The other subjects are for losers who won't get a job, ever, outside of Burger Flipping, or begging on the street as homeless. What we used to call deadbeats back in the day. And as I see an Adeptus Mechanicus profile picture, you have good taste.

[@canhedotricks6078]

When first starting out learning Japanese and discovering all the commonly used websites, I remember being struck by how "old" all the websites looked. It was like being on the internet as a child again. So glad this is an actual thing and not something I misconstrued.

[@ehsnils]

It's not the Japanese web sites that are weird, it's the rest of the world that has been dumbed down. Today when you go to a company web site you get a lot of "we are good and great at what we do" but you won't figure out what the company really do and finding useful information about the products is next to impossible and when you google for useful information you'd be invariably given a list of web sites with some questionable content instead. Just try to find drivers for some older equipment - it's starting to get dangerous.

[@Menon9767]

@@ehsnils wow you really must be an expert UX designer to come to such ingenious conclusions

[@wizirbyman]

@@ehsnils that's actually entirely the opposite - websites nowadays are optimized to the fullest if possible. there's studies that show that if you cant sell whatever is on your site within the first like 3 seconds people will literally not be interested and click off your site. look up 3-30-3 rule.

[@ehsnils]

@@wizirbyman I see that you haven't been to many corporate sites where they just have the most fuzzy language possible and you can't figure out if they sell bread or wrenches.

[@wizirbyman]

@@ehsnils ??? show me one that doesn't make sense. it's really hard to find anything from at least the western society that doesnt follow the 3-30 rule

[@セルビア-g1n]

I'm Japanese! I'm sorry if I'm using a translation I watched all your videos and comments!There was a lot of English that I didn't understand, but I can see that you've done a great job and put in the time to find out this difference and more!It was very easy to understand the difference from Japan while incorporating my own opinion!　お疲れ様でした!そしてありがとうございました!

[@LightMCXx]

NAh you did well

[@Ancellea]

わたしわあめりかじんです、ビデオの中の英語を理解しようとしているのは素晴らしいことだと思います。日本語学習ビデオでも同じことをしています。いまわすこにほんごはなします。I did have to use a translator for some of this still, so I get it.😊

[@autumnblaze6267]

@@Ancellea hey, bro, just a tip in case you didn't know (you probably do, maybe it was a typo, maybe you're just not used to Japanese input on computers/phones): when you use "wa" as a topic marker (as in "watashi WA"), you write it as "ha" (は) rather than "wa" (わ), even though you read it this way (wa) - same story as with the direct object marker "o", it's spelled "wo" (を), but you pronounce it like "o" (お), you did this one correctly also, since I see you using katakana and even kanji in your sentences, imma just remind you that "Amerika" is usually spelled in katakana, not hiragana (unless you're just starting out and writing everything in hiragana OR it's meant to be a stylistic choice) so the first sentence ("watashi wa Amerika-jin desu", you can also skip "watashi wa" in this case) would be: "私はアメリカ人です" in normal writing OR "わたしはあめりかじんです" if you're only using hiragana you probably already know all of this, maybe you just didn't notice how your IME (the software to type Japanese) handles the "wa" particle, but a kind reminder won't hurt great job overall, Japanese is very difficult and I can understand your comment easily

[@sydneymulder9930]

Last semester I took a class that included students from other language majors, and our professor had the idea to compare city websites in a few of the countries that our majors covered. Most showcased each city beautifully and were easy to navigate with dropdown menus. Then he got to Japan. :)

[@nothnx3210]

You reminded me how one time I was using the JPN city website where I live to get vaccinated for the third time, and it was an utter horror to use. It led me to a dead end one time, and I was just so frustrated trying to find the online registration page to register myself for it . . . I just ended up going to a clinic in person (and get waitlisted for a vax that was going to be done in 3 weeks--got covid the same day as the vax LOLOL 😭😭😭😭😭 didn't get that vax at all).

[@Vinemaple]

@@nothnx3210 American county and public service websites are often the same way. But it's mostly because nobody cares enough to make sure they work, and many of the leaders and administrators don't actually want citizens interacting with them.

[@guicho271828]

The difference is there is no dropdown menus. The page is the dropdown menu itself.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@guicho271828 Exactly. A dropdown isn't always the optimal solution. Yes it does well if you have little space to work with, but once the screen gets bigger, displaying the stuff directly can be helpful.

[@answerinprogress]

there was no typo in the title. if you saw one: you didn't.

[@mahfoumil_sfeir7326]

I SAW IT

[@jacobarcher1097]

I thought it was a trick to get people to correct the typo and increase engagement

[@Cookie_Comment]

lmao

[@cheddarpaws4439]

🤫🤫🤫

[@GorgonDrageil]

I know a Jedi when I see one... I've got my eye on you 👁...

[@JamieSandel]

Sabrina’s video production chops are wild. You can tell there’s some real craft going into these framing and staging choices

[@Tera_GX]

r e f r i g e r a t o r

[@pseydtonne]

@@Tera_GX I'm seriously thinking about trying that oddly baffled corner with my good mics.

[@1234cheerful]

@Karl with a K Maybe your attention span is too short. She explains it, very clearly, starting at 13:39 and it's about smartphones. I'll summarize unnecessarily: o Japan was about 10 years ahead of everyone by the late '90's, their phones had email and cameras already. o Japanese companies were profitable so why change? (After all, fax machines do work, they just aren't "bleeding edge" tech). o Other countries and cultures went with simplified, minimalist design for the iPhone while Japan stayed with what was already working for them. (AKA If it ain't broke, don't fix it).

[@1234cheerful]

@Karl with a K it's true that this is why the Executive Summary and TL:DR were invented.

[@DavinderEvolution]

BROOOO why am i so impressed with this video? she literally spent a lot of time, not just researching, but making this video, editing it so well. I am at the geography section with the map in the background with the little proximity animation and the border lining of asian countries. Brilliant!

[@Zahaqiel]

...Things I learned in this video: - Some people keep cameras in their cupboards just in case they need to talk to an audience while doing chores - There might be a market for interesting fonts in Asia - Graphs - Green-screening in front of the internet is quintessential 90s nostalgia

[@thelastcube.]

please make my college notes, you covered everything

[@a_root]

There are already quite a few fonts. Check out the ones typical in movies, games, and restaurant signs if you want to see a nice variety.

[@junzenlavapie4458]

If you're interested in creating fonts for Japanese, here's a little crash course to prepare you're getting into. - They have three writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. - Hiragana is usually used for "grammatical" stuff, like to write if the verb is in past or present tense. It has 46 characters. - Katakana is for loan words, foreign names, and sometimes, exclamatory expressions. It also has 46 characters. - Kanji, the characters that originated from Chinese, depict meaning, or "entire words". It has around....... 2,000+ characters..... that are COMMONLY used; also called Joyo kanji. - You can't make a font only for hiragana only, or katakana only, or kanji only. They use a mixture of all three in writing. So you have to make a font for all three. - The 2,000+ characters are again, just commonly used kanji. What if someone uses a complicated word or an archaic word, and the kanji is outside the 2,000 characters? If your font doesn't have that specific character, they would opt for a different font. So you can't make a font which only covers the 2,000 kanji, you have to make one that covers all of them or almost all of them. How many are there? It's an average of 50,000. Please note that I don't mean to be discouraging. Not at all. I just want to give a preview of what it is like, and how applaud-able people are when they create a font for the entire Japanese language. :)

[@gobi817]

I think i missed green screen part. Can you explain what green screening for websites is?

[@Zahaqiel]

@@gobi817 An example would be from 10:48 until about 12:40. Sabrina green-screened herself "into the internet", which is a very 90s move.

[@Hingaflips]

This was so incredibly well done. You’re camera work, storytelling, PROGRAMMING AND SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE, holy shit.

[@deenzmartin6695]

*your camera work

[@coolbeans486]

SCIENCE!! I LOVE SCIENCE

[@fynkozari9271]

@@deenzmartin6695 but that channel is verified? How can they misspell? KZbin verify these kind of people?

[@JungGeumbi]

@@fynkozari9271 im just replying before this guy gets cancelled

[@deenzmartin6695]

@@coolbeans486 I LOVE THE SCIENCE™

[@zyaicob]

It's interesting that Japan just does computers differently in this instance because Japan doing computers differently is what led to emoji coming into existence.

[@Kevin_Street]

And the Japanese version of message boards inspired the creation of 4Chan, which led to the creation (Congealing?) of Anonymous.

[@xahal]

@@Kevin_Street Still waiting for the horizontal scrolling of comments on top of live videos on KZbin or Twitch.

[@harrytsang1501]

@@xahal that wouldn't work for English. The amount of information you can fit in the same width is just nothing compared to CJK characters

[@norasyikinali6283]

@@xahal I think the horizontal scrolling of comments does happen on BiliBili livestreams. Twitch does have flying emoticons though, if the streamer enables it.

[@dbell1894]

I feel like unified web design is a bad idea. These days, there’s a pressure for everything and everyone to be the same. To follow the same guidelines. To not differ on ideals, or values, or morals. And if you know anything about genetics, you know that diversity is important to keep a system healthy and capable of evolving. Japan is one of the few countries I see that resist this sort of global cultural assimilation, and whether you like or dislike Japan’s cultural differences, I think that it’s very important that they keep them and that they not let international forces pressure change on them. And I also think that it’s important that other cultures start doing this as well. We can live in harmony while being different. In fact, I would argue that that allows us to harmonize more.

[@zcbz]

"twitter was normal one day and by the time youre watching this it might be dead" she knows the future???????????

[@randykipkurui1415]

Ikr🤣🤣

[@joshushushu]

bro im not even kidding, when I started reading your comment, THE AUDIO IS PLAYING THE EXACT SAME LINE

[@jdelacruz14791]

Nah, she simply just released the video in November 2022 (Elon bought twitter in October 2022)

[@lerdodetejada]

That aged poorly.

[@krim7]

Korean is not logographic, they use an alphabet like Latin or Cyrillic scripts. They just have a unique way of positioning their letters into blocks rather than strictly horizontal.

[@mang_0nim81]

Didn't they still use Chinese characters?

[@jeenee_]

they have Hanja which is basically Chinese characters

[@powershin12]

@@mang_0nim81 only really old and conservative people still using them in official documents. but 99.9 percent of any written korean is in hangeul.

[@The_SeoulJourner]

@@mang_0nim81 Korean aka Hangul system was developed by King Sejong in 1443 to improve literacy for the betterment of his people. It is considered the most scientific writing system in the world. In 1446 Hangul became the official writing system of Korea. Still, Hanja/Chinese was still used by the elite class for another 500 years but mostly on official documents.

[@Sephiths]

I wouldn't be surprised if she knows this. She mentioned it that way because regardless of it being an alphabet or not. When you're looking for fonts. Korean fonts are usually bundled together with Chinese and Japanese. I assume each Korean syllable combination/full block has it's own glyph. So that it works more or less the same as other text inputs. Using keyboard software to adjust the character shown.

[@iau]

My main takeaways from the video: - Websites across the world began simplifying to accomodate for smartphones - Japan had smartphones 10 years before everyone else so they evolved differently: They just got used to browsing websites like that - Japanese websites just look like websites used to look before they all underwent simplification

[@Liggliluff]

@Telleva These are the two struggles I have, both on desktop and on mobile: - Things dynamically changing size and position as pages load. The solution is to reserve and define sizes of things in advance. - The infinite scrolling that prevents you from keeping your location when the page is unloaded or refreshed, or bookmarking your location. The solution is just to keep pages, and having the page number in the URL.

[@plasticflower]

@Telleva What's wrong with "infinite" scrolling? It's not even infinite, it just dynamically loads chunks of comments/pictures as you scroll. The alternative would be to start loading everything the moment you open the page, but that would be very bandwidth-intensive

[@LuxurioMusic]

@@Liggliluff I have to say I can't stand infinite scroll. Pagination or bust! I totally agree with your points.

[@xelnagazchild]

the green screen in front of the Web part was actually a delight to watch !

[@krunkle5136]

@@plasticflower the alternative is rather loading a fixed amount of content and giving you pages to click on below.

[@TheIppoippo]

I'm a 25+ year software engineer (from UK), and half of that work lifetime has been spent in Japan (where I am now). While I'm not primarily a "front-end developer" (I'm backend, server), I do interact with the engineers who do that stuff. So I guess I have some insight into, biased with my own opinions and feelings. Whilst there may have been technical drivers for why the page design was information dense at the start, cultural reasons are why that design language has remained prevalent and is only changing in a small subset of the Japanese internet now. The big cultural thing I've seen is that everything must be fully explained... in DETAIL! If it's not explained, it's not to be trusted. Japanese users won't actually read all that info, but they expect it to be presented. (This applies to Powerpoint presentations too, they are crazy high information density, rather than a simple set of bullet points that get elaborated upon in the verbal presentation). Japanese seem to be very good at taking dense information, blanking it out and only absorbing the stuff that needs to be known. (Same with signage, written and audio... train stations and the city are an audio cacophony just hammering away at you). A website is just a online version of a formal printed document. (Another aside, if you doing something formal like buying a house, rather than send it to you, they get you to go in person to an office, and a formally qualified person will read you the small print!!! So, so, boring. As they read it to you, they then highlight with a pen the actual bits you should just skim read. Anyway I digress). The other big culture point will be resistance to change. That's why new design language influences from other places haven't been largely adopted. Some of the small startups, providing things like HR software, etc now do seem to have more Western Style design. But as more functionality gets added, and with a lack/shortage of expertise in the Product Design, Information Architecture and Web Designer area, it often falls to Project Managers and Software Engineers to add in this new functionality into the UI design... and frankly we aren't that good at doing it.

[@nairod3536]

I worked as a software architect in Japan for 6 years, and I share your views. "resistance to change" is a big factor, not only Japan is a very conservative and conformist country, but also mimicking other behavior and improving without changing everything is in general considered a good thing and is central. Kaizen culture is very present in IT.

[@outsideaglass]

As a person with ADHD, I feel sorry for the Japanese people with ADHD. Must really suck to be overwhelmed by too much information that they can't process/blank out like their fellow countrymen can. :(

[@ooooneeee]

@@outsideaglass IKR. I have anxiety and can get sensory overload when I'm stressed. Glad I don't have to exist in Japan.

[@hunter.2206]

which programming languages ​​should I study to work in Japan (?)

[@eqqx1108]

@@hunter.2206 weeb 😢

[@chrimsta1714]

can i just say, i adore the amount of aesthetic editing that went into the history of the internet portion of this video

[@betinapaixao6258]

My final thesis for my Programming major is literally "fixing" my Japanese university's webpage because of how confusing it is... This is gold to change my views on why it feels so confusing and why it is not necessarily wrong. The problem is that here we have a bunch of international students who, after two years, still don't know how to navigate the website (I included). I feel like this video just opened many possibilities on how I can explore this matter to something way bigger than my previous goal. Your channel is my favorite because you find creative and effective answers to questions we only ask before sleeping and never think about again.

[@hej2800]

which university is it? I've been trying to find research group information in a few and it's just... 😩😩😩

[@doublemint3664]

To be fair College websites in the US are notorious for being bloated and hard to find what you're looking for. I don't think that's s Japan thing

[@taiefmiah]

I don't think you really need to second guess why you think it's confusing. It's the website of an institution which isn't a tech company. It's going to be confusing based on outdated norms, this is global. A lot of it is due to the fact that these have been made over decades with different staff and different technologies for various purposes.

[@im.onalei]

it's like that everywhere lol

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@doublemint3664 Because they display so much at once or because they hide everything behind a single button?

[@kevinfeliz8711]

this woman singlehandedly explained everything I learned about SEO in a three day conference in "how technology shaped web design" in less than 5 minutes

[@Maggie-Gelderblom]

Tiny detail but the Korean alphabet isn't logographic, just because some people might be confused, it's actually phonetic! I'm assuming you're talking about Hanja, which was used a long time ago but now is only used for names and to look fancy on official documents or historical things :) It doesn't form part of the actual used Korean writing system, which is called Hangul

[@pujiea]

interesting, can hangul represent all korean words? China has pinyin that is only used for reading, and chinese characters for writing. In Japan, they have hiragana / katakana for reading, and hiragana+katakana+kanji to cover all the words. Obviously in english, you get letters for both reading and writing. Both China and Japan use 漢字 becuase letters just wont cover all the words. In english, you have homonyms and just as not many words comparing to East Asia cultures. How do you guys get it to work with all the vocabs?

[@Maggie-Gelderblom]

扑街 Yes! Hangul is used for 100% of Korean words. It works the same way as the Latin alphabet with each character representing a sound, and the sounds combining together to form words. What makes it a little special is that the individual characters are combined into blocks that represent syllables, but still phonetic! For example, if we take the syllable 학 (hak). This syllable consists of the characters ㅎ ㅏ ㄱ which each individually represent h, a, and k. Now 학 comes from the Chinese root word (學) and that Hanja, as they call the Chinese root words, is generally known to refer to learning and studying. The word for school is 학교 (hakgyo), academy is 학원 (hakwon), etc. But even if words are based on a Chinese root word, the Chinese character isn't used in day to day Korean. You will find the Hanja in dictionaries, birth certificates or other official documents, and sometimes just as aesthetic devices to give off a historical vibe, but almost always in combination with Hangul

[@Maggie-Gelderblom]

Disclaimer: I'm not Korean, but I've been studying it for 6 years and living there for 2, and use it everyday to communicate with my bf haha

[@dosvitania]

thank you for an interesting info, didn't know that hanja is not widely used now. i have a question then: how do you understand the difference between homonyms? and how do you differ the words in sentences when those don't use spaces? i'm studying japanese now and if we write using only phonetic alphabets, texts are sometimes really hard to understand without spaces between words. sorry for my eng, i'm ukrainian and still learning

[@yanah.2041]

@@dosvitania they do use spaces between words, and as for homonyms i think they don't have too many of them. i imagine otherwise they'd use context (conversation topic, position in sentence etc) to differentiate, just like any other phonetic language!

[@DevKantChouhan]

She predicted twitter will be dead and now it is 'X'

[@dragonite.p]

She smart

[@ammarrashed1770]

This could make it to best-paper award in ICWSM. You should definitely consider publishing these findings academically! THEY ARE GOLD

[@Gunita23]

⬆️ up!

[@yusufgkhn]

watching this at 4 am like: this is youtube premium

[@hgv85]

She’ll have to work on her analysis of the impact of culture on Japanese internet (or so says reviewer 2), but yes, otherwise fascinating.

[@ArturCzajka]

1.3 million people wouldn't read an academic paper 😝 And it would be paywalled xD

[@jorge-lp2xi]

Agree!

[@cecilenaught]

I have wondered about this exact premise since I moved to Japan several years ago. Amazing research and discoveries!! I feel like I finally have some answers to this question. Actually there was a point where it was bothering me so much that I was asking my Japanese friends and colleagues about it in a casual-survey kind of way, and several people said that they preferred the look of typical Japanese websites like Yahoo or Rakuten because the large amount of info made them trust it more. They said that when they looked at more simple web pages, it felt like something was being hidden. And that's when I realized that when you go to many kinds of official stores in person, whether it is for electronics or cakes, the staff will often try to sell you the product by informing you about a ton of details in an impressive and formal fashion. It could just be me, but I saw a kind of parallel between the websites like Rakuten and walking into a Bic Camera and talking with a staff member in their department about one of the products.

[@salemsaberhagan]

I wonder if this preference for more information to build trust is a cultural thing. In most collectivistic cultures, everyone knows everyone else & those networks are used to gather information about how trustworthy someone is. It is so engrained into the way we interact with people in society that it's not really considered a big deal to straight up ask questions on the first meeting that a westerner might consider rude & intrusive. So when we cannot get information about someone, it's a possibility that they're actively hiding something or absolutely antisocial. I remember back when I had applied for an international program in Japan, the person through whom the interaction had happened said that they had felt my emails were too short & non-informative & I had thought that was weird because from my perspective, I had been very straightforward & complete in terms of what information I was giving. In India, where I live, we usually have a more concise way of interacting via text but a more elaborate manner in speech. Probably because so many of our electronic interactions happen in English or at least in roman script & a lot of us have low confidence in using the language.

[@madisonwilliamson]

I just saw a comment ^ up there somewhere that agrees with u

[@RRrico0625]

Please let me correct one thing. Japanese really don't like the design of Rakuten at all. Everyone think it sucks, but they use Rakuten for economical reason.

[@Psi-Storm]

That's so infuriating on the ebay app. You search for an item and when you click it, you basically only get the picture, the headline, the price and a big "buy now" and "to the basket" button. Then you scroll up and down until you find the small button that lets you expand the full item description.

[@Respectable_Username]

Just want to give a huge shout out to the production quality on this one. Absolutely love the way you cut everything together, particularly the Tetris shot! AiP always has amazing production values and this one in particular stood out while watching, so wanted to make sure to say something so you know we viewers notice and appreciate it! ❤

[@Franatom]

I was thinking the same thing... The editing is amazing on this one

[@ettaz]

I was also thinking that the entire time I was watching! It's always great, but this time the editing was top notch!

[@Vinemaple]

And your hair looks amazing! And consistent throughout the 2 1/2 months!

[@yagosantiago10]

I find so amazing that you are so good of a researcher AND has a great way to deliver that information without being boring, thanks

[@abhisavale6246]

The way Sabrina researched and reached the answer is so inspiring

[@Ayumi649]

The amount of research and effort that went into making this video is impressive. We appreciate you, Sabrina.

[@ddukki]

Love the video and the detail with which you do your research. Just a note about Korean writing: Korean characters aren't logographic. They have phonetic letters. They're just arranged differently. Example: G + A + P = GAP in English, but ㄱ + ㅏ + ㅂ = 갑 in Korean.

[@CarMedicine]

And Japanese writing, while it does have the logographic Kanji, the other 50ish% of characters (on average) is either Hiragana or Katakana, which are syllabary systems: (each character represents a syllable)

[@JTProductions3]

Unless your reading the other Korean alphabet

[@tillie_brn]

I think she might have been referring to Hanja characters, which are the traditional Korean system of writing derived from Chinese characters. Though they're not used often nowadays.

[@kappasphere]

​@@CarMedicine she was talking about how many characters need to be supported, not how many characters are actually used. And the set of all hiragana and katakana barely makes a dent in the number of characters that can be used in Japanese.

[@CarMedicine]

@@kappasphere oh yeah, important difference, isn't it.

[@IgorSilveira]

I can't recall watching a video from start to finish and being 100% focused on it... This is an absolute informational and cinematic masterpiece. Thank you for your hard work. Kudos!

[@spennypayne]

The amount of work that went into this video is wildly impressive. The editing, graphics, and sound design is top notch. Well done and your hard work and effort is recognized.

[@JoeTrickey]

Thank you, that’s so kind!

[@ChiasmMarksTheSpot]

I don't really know anything technical about videos but my eyes recognized the greatness and sharp distinction between what I just saw and other content creators' stuff

[@mquietsch6736]

Except she talks too fast for old people like me. But yes. Absolutely. Her videos would still be awesome if she used only half of the time she's used to make this. Cool woman.

[@spennypayne]

@@mquietsch6736 maybe try watching the videos in .75x playback speed? That might help. Or subtitles might help catch things too. Hope those suggestions help. Personally I find her presentation style quite fluid and dynamic. Slows down when needed and has high energy when it calls for it. The editing reflects this nicely too.

[@mquietsch6736]

@@spennypayne Nah, I understand her perfectly. Only she doesn't give me a breather between the facts. I always find that if I'm not given time to digest a fact I forget it at once. I'm writing this about 3 days after having watched the video and I've forgotten all she said.

[@MrJesam111]

I think a strong argument for the difference being cultural rather than technological is the trend on Japanese TV to have a bunch of design elements that seem cluttered and distracting from a foreign perspective

[@ramppappia]

I don't know if it's true, but along with the original explanation said in the video, I've read people say that since japanese uses very articulated characters that cram meaning in one tiny block, they find this kind of design less chaotic again, I don't know if it's true, we should see how it is in china

[@CaptainOblivion]

That's what I was thinking-Japanese graphic design is like that in all areas. Packaging, magazines, everything (or at least, my perception of it is that way)

[@MemeMarine]

@@ramppappia Chinese TV and online design trends broadly mirror western ones

[@EliotChildress]

What’s also interesting about those chaotic TV sets is that they are largely all physical. Real posters hung from the ceiling and stickers they pull off to reveal new info rather than touching a screen and moving to a new picture.

[@-tera-3345]

@@CaptainOblivion There was a specific example that got a lot of traction in Japan a while back when the movie Parasite came out, comparing the extremely minimalistic international version of the movie poster with the Japanese version, covered in text and taglines. Japanese people were complaining about how the entire aesthetic and meaning of the poster had been ruined, until people from the Japanese film industry came out and said "we have to do that for advertising, because that just makes things sell better to Japanese people." Apparently they have actual sales data on this kind of thing, so Japanese advertising in general favors dense, information-heavy designs. So there definitely is a cultural aspect to it. I'd agree with the guess that it could be related to the TV culture; not only are there all sorts of cluttered design elements on entertainment programs, but they often also put fancy on-screen captions for most of what's said. I'd be curious to know how that trend got started, though.

[@lyrical_vr]

Bruh, fucking hell, this video is a masterpiece in essence because of the collective hardwork put into the video, the cinematography, video editing, the flow, the RESEARCH, and all that sweat, sheeeesh. This was the first video I watched by you, and I am vv sure, I'll stick for a very long period. Thank you for this.

[@AdeptJL_Codes]

Same

[@cxsxnxvx]

Alot of the videos you watch go through a similar process, this youtuber talked alot about the process that the idea goes through

[@samanthaloh9076]

chanced upon this in my suggestions and the editing, the flow, the audio was so good and engaging I LOVE IT

[@SpenserLi]

As a web front end engineer since the beginning of 2000s in east Asia, the reason is actually pretty straightforward - the design you see was mostly popular in early 2000s in web portals (just think of yahoo), and most “web companies” in east Asia mostly outsource their website so they basically resisted Web 2.0 design shifts.

[@catnip202xch.]

Not to mention, japan is super conservative when it comes to corporate adoption of new tech, so they never really left the 1990s-2000s era of web design.

[@dirtiestharry6551]

Thanks you, this it literally it. I'm sorry that this lady took probably good amount of research and work for this video but this lady completely missed this.

[@krunkle5136]

@@catnip202xch. so they dodged infinite scrolling.

[@GoToMan]

@@dirtiestharry6551 Evidence?

[@catnip202xch.]

@@krunkle5136 nah with this, its still a thing, you just see what amounts to endless links that cram into "dumb phones" like flip phones even though theres not that much content.

[@phasmata3813]

"Being a STEM student also means that that DIDN'T STOP ME FROM TRYING." That was....kind of menacing, and I love it.

[@Neis999]

It’s part of the experience. There WILL be a solution or we’ll die trying!

[@_waterlettuce]

This is a very well-made video. I admire your passion and hard work doing hours and hours of research, Sabrina. Felt like I don't deserve to easily consume an 8 weeks of research in 15 minutes. Thank you for sharing with us! Really glad to be here.

[@estephanyescarcena3018]

ikr!! I feel that I don't deserve that amount of quality content!!!!! It's like eating a delicacy after eating KFC

[@ASMR-xe9kw]

Thats what i was about to say! research shes done, the editing, the way she speaks it all catches the listeners attention, i aspire to be as good as her in presenting stuff

[@jag-biitii1075]

cant agreed more, i was looking for this comment...!

[@theluckystumble]

As someone who lives in Japan I find doing anything on a Japanese website to be frustrating most of the time. The design is often not intuitive, the important information is buried, and they are obsessed with making you download pdfs. Not to mention some of the pages literally look like they're from the early 2000s. This video was so informative and well done tho, great work!!

[@vestofholding]

This is the first video of yours that I've watched, and just want to say how much I love the editing and cinematography of this video. All the varied shots that keep things fun, all the great visuals, it's all fantastic. You really have an eye for this!

[@snowyguything]

Her : “my brain is too soft to do that” Also her: makes a piece of code that allows you to take screenshots of every top website in the world but has to accept the cookies by finding the web page element that is the button that accepts cookies in hundreds of languages Why did I get so many likes on this 😭😭😭

[@rzxv3]

selenium is ez

[@sidhantseth007]

@@rzxv3 Yup, you can translate "accept all" to all languages and create a list of them. then ask selenium to look for an object that has value as "accept all".

[@reprovedcandy]

@@sidhantseth007 that would work fairly well, probably catches the majority but there will be plenty of non-standardized formats that will deviate and not get captured. Def would be a plentifully solid solution for her use case... though if you're building a universal 1-click checkout system like my team, then that kind of solution simply won't work. :)

[@sidhantseth007]

@@reprovedcandy I think we will have very few edge cases for such because almost all websites in EU are required to show the buttons and disclaimer clearly. I have taken the example of EU, because it has the most stringent requirements for accepting

[@evelynkurniadi3474]

Then my brain might be liquid 😂

[@alikcsg]

It actually is about culture. The internet of Japan is a representation of Japan's IRL marketing model. Huge signs covering the whole building, lots of text, lots of shapes, and lots of colors. Their stores are the same. Where that business model came from, I can't say, but it was definitely still present prior to smartphones. Perhaps it's so cluttered because it was inspired by Tokyo's ability to maximize their advertising with the limited amount of space each business had available.

[@KH-of2rb]

Yes. We are focusing on Japan, but actually China and Korea are the same as Japan. Obviously, Japan is not the only one that is special due to cultural influences.

[@Romanticism_]

is that the angela anaconda digimon crossover in your pfp

[@lautrufend]

I agree there is truth in this video, but the culture absolutely enabled the design to develop the way it did. I work in marketing. On everything from product packaging to movie posters, most markets take what we provide and localize it. It’s always the Japan team that comes back to request an alternate design that has a lot more visual stimuli and text crammed in. I can’t read Japanese, so I leave this to them. But I see lots of exclamation marks!! And bursts with marketing words, text running up and down the side panels, and sometimes random English with a hint of Doge sensibility.

[@heartdex]

i think the point is that western marketing used to also be cluttered, maybe not to the same extent but still much more than now, and the saturation of simplistic digital marketing that had to accommodate phones , as the digital realm became the primary method of consumption, meant all other forms of western marketing followed suit. I think Japanese IRL marketing honestly would've also became more minimalist if digital advertisements had to dumb itself down for mobiles.

[@katrinabryce]

If you visited London 150 years ago, you would have seen the same thing, but it is not like that now.

[@TheAwarenessMage]

We appreciate all the hard work you put in to make this video engaging. This is a lot of effort and this video is great!!

[@wuerhyueh]

The nerdiness of this channel has healed all my traumas. Love your work. You are the greatest.

[@memyselfiamweird]

I've never clicked on a video so fast; right up my alley. But my wife made a good point: does the fact that coding is done primarily in English affect anything? When I was trying to find a job in Japan, some companies were interested in the fact that I could already speak english, so they were tempted to train me up as a web coder, rather than train a native Japanese speaker to essentially code in a non-native language. That said, I have no idea how this might translate across other countries and languages.

[@guitar2935]

Not at all. Programming languages use english words but there aren't many of them and they don't use English grammar. It's like being a chef and using french terms. You don't need to be fluent in French to know what an hors d'oeuvre is. English reading comprehension is important for reading documentation and collaborating across borders but programming ability itself isn't related to language.

[@stevedotwav]

@@guitar2935 ...there are a loooot of programming languages. And sure, they don't use English grammar per se, but there are things that would be more confusing if you just memorize the arbitrary characters. Let's use PHP's "file_put_contents()" function. You could memorize that string of characters as arbitrary values that represent the functionality you have in mind in a different language, but if you comprehend it as English, it also tells you what order the arguments are=(file, contents). Now, modern IDEs will just give you the documentation for a function when you type it--we don't all have all of the argument layouts rattling around in our brains--but that is only useful if the documentation is in your language like you said. There's also times where I know the *concept* I'm looking to use but don't necessarily know the function names, and being able to get to that answer requires being able to articulate a concept in a way that helps me search documentation or intellisense. Like I said, there's very little verbatim memorization involved, so this is like 95% of writing code. While the name of the function would be short enough to memorize arbitrarily, being able to express the idea in a clear and concise way to find what you're looking for is definitely a higher-level language skill.

[@stevedotwav]

@@guitar2935 there are non-english programming languages, and the underlying "flow" of programming (connecting components together to get a certain output from a certain input) is certainly language-agnostic, but to program well in a language based in English is gonna require a fairly decent grasp on the language

[@davidGA殿]

I follow a KZbinr (spanish, kira sensei) that says that part of the horrible design of their websites is a combination of the documentation being in a language they don't fully understand and not having good or extensive documentation in theirs (I don't know what would I program if I wasn't able to speak English correctly, so many coding webs and StackOverflow help me to get where I need almost every day) and not wanting to change anything that isn't broken, instead keep building upon it (for example, many of Yahoo services still work in Japan). I believe their kind of web design is also related to how cluttered their tv and videos can get, with lots of sounds, text on the screen, and different fonts for emphasis. I find that connection really interesting. It's like some sort of common design language.

[@bosmer3836]

In my country we mostly just code everything in English, even comments, so it's not really a problem. We have English classes since 5th grade, some people still can't understand the language, but if you're a programmer you probably spend a majority of time on the internet anyway, which is a valuable tool for immersion learning.

[@gogo5565]

The story telling, the edits, the flow of the video, and ending message. Goosebumps.

[@willdunn3136]

Your videos are so fun! I learned a lot about fonts and the Japanese vs non Japanese Internet, and visuals look like they took a lot work!!! Great work, I loved it!

[@seafog]

This was very well done. I think this phenomenon is also related to something called 手書きポップ (Tegaki POP) in retail stores in Japan. They are catchy, kitsch handrawn signage, custome-made by shop assistants to promote certain products. Please image search, their craft is quite impressive. They are seen everywhere, from supermarkets, drugstores to bookshops. There is even a Japanese typeface classification, like blackletter or serifs, that is derived from these signages. This design style is reflected in things like film posters and youtube thumbnails too. While they aren't elegant but effective, legible, fast at catching attention and does the job. Tokyo itself is busy as is, but these design choices make it very draining to live. I also like how you mentioned that Japan didn't try to market their high-tech flip phones outside of Japan. We call them "Galapagos phones", from the Galapagos Islands where evolution occurred independently like the phones in Japan. South Korea also had high-tech phones but they had to adapt and market it outside their country too, because their local market isn't big enough. I believe the same goes for anything really, like kpop and films, maybe other electronics and cars too? They start off similar in quality, maybe better in Japan, but South Korea markets it outside Japan and kept improving while Japan is stuck in 00's. Japan is so out of touch with the outside it makes a perfect tourist destination, but not the best place to live if you don't ft in imo.

[@Vinemaple]

YES!!! I'm not sure if it's the same thing, but I was going to watch this video because Sabrina, but then I wondered, "Do their websites look all Tegaki POP?" And, yeah, to a Western eye, it's very similar!

[@frappes_]

Totally agree. Studied there for 6 months and if you don't fit in, you're just better off as a tourist.

[@al5068]

I lived there for years and I absolutely loved it. Miss Japan everyday. I had no idea about Tegaki Pop so I learned a lot from your comment! 😊

[@zooning-6843]

Not fitting in is pretty much what the TrashTaste boys do for a living.

[@cheungch1990]

And now the entire Japanese mobile phone industry is done after their local customers eventually turned to iphone and android smartphone 5 or 10 years later than the rest of the world. It's a country that announced they're going to stop using floppy disks *last month*. I grew up in the 90s with the idea that Japan was cool, hi-tech and futuristic. Turns out they're stuck in the 2000s. Japan has now become the symbol of retro-futurism in vaporwave.

[@W4l0p]

This was propably the best video so far. You had a hypothesis, found a reasonable way to test and confirm it before trying to figure why it is that way. Also the editing was really good.

[@IoriTatsuguchi]

Thanks for close look! I'm Japanese webdev and this have been driving my young colleague nuts in recent years, because he's fed up with 'boring' designs. While I think your notion about the technology is valid, I also think the level at which it contributes to the current state is limited as it's been a while since everything turned into smartphone today. A few problem we have at my team (which has both developers and designers). 1. Most companies outsource designs and development through sales or IT dept personnel. (I heard online that it's more a thing in Japan than in America.) This means that someone who gives what's acceptable to the project doesn't have knowledge in digital design key features such as UI/UX design. (Note that kind of IT personnel I'm talking about here has the profession with minimum overlap of knowledge with website development.) Something that seems obvious to us doesn't get approval. 2. It seems like none of the company has clear brand message thus it makes incredibly risky and hard to organize their presentation. Sales only cares about numbers (such as clicks and access) which only encourages the design update that moves buttons around the page, but not simplify things. Math here is that more button in place, the more chance people clicks, and optimize it by relocating, not focusing (to avoid risking the reduced choice to be given). 3. Much of designers and developers aren't properly educated. Also the access to the resources is very limited as we don't read English. Much of my team except for me reads articles written in Japanese, which only covers tricks and software that was cool in America like 3 years ago, with outdated details and sometimes even wrong instructions. This makes it really hard to catch up with things, and even start getting into the field to begin with. So I think there are culture, or at least corporate and educational culture playing roles here and there. I hope more Japanese designers and sales dept take a look at this problem, or non-problem. Afterall, it's not that we hate stylish websites lol

[@froobly]

I think a lot of your observations are equally valid in America, but the one that jumps out is "access to resources is very limited as we don't read English." That really seems like it would isolate you in subtle and pervasive ways. Even if you've read the article that's making the rounds, your client won't have, and your modernization proposal will be rejected for all the reasons you've brought up.

[@IoriTatsuguchi]

​@@froobly It does have greaet impact to technological choice and also offshore development opportunities, but I don't see that as a biggest contributor to messy design. Given that much of so-called Web Designers doesn't know how to code here, there can be such thing as "it looks pretty despite developed poorly". Yet things aren't looking like so. According to senior designer in my team, the typical ultimate reason is that nobody in decision making chain wants to deal with apperance, hence you have to get a direct approval from the CEO of the company. Some Western dev in Japan said East Asians seem to focus more on practicality of things rather than the presentation, and I think that is probably the closest it ever got to the answer. Looking pretty is not getting a good reputation. I can't branch out too far but art education and scene in Japan is, according to my painter freind, abysmal. So maybe it's interesting to take a look from that angle as well.

[@froobly]

​@@IoriTatsuguchi That matches an old rumor about Amazon, where Jeff Bezos was directly responsible for the look of the front page, which is why it was at the time totally unusable. People would propose improvements, and they would always be shot down because Jeff Bezos liked it how it was.

[@tmkwb109]

I’m a web designer in Japan and I totally agree with you… Many of coworkers don’t care so much about appearance. As you said, I have hard time reading English. It takes so much time and tiring to read…Also, as you mentioned, some customers complain about not having enough details. Maybe we Japanese still have “customers are gods”kind of mentality (which is stupid lol) Maybe that’s why we tend to add more. BTW comparing to western world, Japanese business emails are also longer and more complicated. Because “customers are gods” lol

[@IoriTatsuguchi]

@@tmkwb109 I agree. In my team, good designer (as in designer that makes client happy) is the one who can cram as much thing as possible while retaining the cleaner look with designing skillsets. And yeah communication issue may not be related to this but it does take energy away for sure. I was just talking with American engineer on how blaming are handled. I told him that I consult with sales first to get my word aligned with expectation and whatnot. I think it’s nice in some other business but but in this fast moving world.

[@tametsin1320]

“Twitter might be dead by the time you watch this”…. Me watching this in a world where it’s X now….

[@TogetherLearning]

I wrote a research paper and made a video about this topic from the viewpoint of an American technologist living in Japan for about 20 years. Hawkinson, E. (2017). Japan’s Galapagos Syndrome and Educational Technology Development and Design. The Journal of Scientific Social Studies I also made a video about this around the same time where I point out a string of technologies developing differently in Japan and how it influenced and it goes much deeper than web design and to things like file and domain naming conventions. That video is over on my channel. But thank you dear video producer you have inspired me to revisit this topic!

[@erichawkinson]

So much more to this than web design, living in Japan once you see it, you can't unsee it.

[@treezen522]

I'm gonna read that thesis

[@hollowone777]

Ooo, so interesting! Thanks so much for this. This whole topic fascinates.

[@DagKlingstedt]

Great video! I have lived and worked in Japan for the better part of the past 40 years, doing a lot of writing, graphics and editorial work for both print and the web, and (I'm sorry if this has been mentioned in another comment) I think there's another solution to the mystery. Japanese graphic designers are often forced by superiors to cram absolutely amazing amounts of information onto every single page, and this has been going on for a long time in the print world in Japan, so there's this magazine design tradition that has just been re-used on the web. Old habits die hard, especially in a country like Japan that is both traditional and very conformist.

[@EggTamago7]

This is along the lines of what I was thinking as well. If you look at ads on the subway in Japan... yeah they're exactly as you described: Cram as much into the space available as possible. And then a bit more.

[@Cationna]

SO IT IS ABOUT THE CULTURE (as well) HA I KNEW IT Seriously tho, very interesting point, thank you!

[@weok-doing-things]

Yeah I agree. The web design in general do come from graphical design roots. And given the Japanese culture it is very obvious to see a very strong influence from more traditional and conservative graphic design layout and such on web interfaces🎉

[@ChachachaChiyo92]

I agree! I've been working in Japan for the last 2 years (American company with a Japanese branch), and even with US influence, my Japanese coworkers do this with powerpoint presentations, documentations, and emails. Everything takes so long to read and process. It's very different coming from the US. I respect the culture here and like my coworkers, but sometimes, I wish we go against the Japanese status quo and traditions.

[@edo_tokyo_]

this is very true! I work shooting videos and my boss want me to shoot every single detail, and put everything in the video even if doesn't serves to the story. it sucks!

[@pranaynagpure2804]

I can't imagine how much work she put into single video, hats off

[@GTXBOY1650]

did you see the credits

[@pranaynagpure2804]

@@GTXBOY1650 I saw now, but hey the data collection the machine algo didn't she do it by herself.

[@Cineenvenordquist]

You're shitting me, she has seen some Japan and yet she made forced stupid categorization decisions in ML analysis. Brute force for the brute force god is more like what happened.

[@pawanraghav7243]

This is the most hard worked video i have every watched on youtube, well researched and most of all very hard editing (everything is so on point a bit funny touch) hats off to you

[@CargoJ]

I was about to say "no they're not across an ocean" and then I remembered. It doesn't matter I'm in South Korea JAPAN IS AN ISLAND. THAT'S LIKE LITERALLY THEIR THING

[@krunkle5136]

*Archipelago :)

[@CargoJ]

@@krunkle5136 You. Know. What I mean

[@THEaiGAI]

Holly crap!! Nearly speechless but I must say. I mean I came in for the useless information and stayed for the *SPECTACULAR* Production and Delivery. You are a true master of presenting complex ideas. WOW!

[@SBK2480]

Yup, this video's production is better than some multi-billion dollar companies & professional studios - loved it!

[@shandorfadjirackor1888]

Me too 😂

[@_yugi_]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the amount of video editing she did

[@_yugi_]

@@LowTempDabr we can still appreciate it :)

[@pierrekilgoretrout3143]

indeed: wow!

[@KiiboHasControversialOpinionss]

Can we just appreciate the editing of this video for a sec, it’s so pointlessly great

[@JJSquirtle]

As someone who occasionally browses the japanese web, everything from shopping to news, to Niconico, I love how many websites have so much going on, reminds me of browsing the internet in the early 2000's and it also satisfies the part of me that wants no space wasted

[@Thesupremeone34]

As someone who interacts with Japanese social media sites like.... weekly. I'm always struck by how cluttered and old they look.

[@aDumbHorse]

@@Thesupremeone34 I love a cluttered site because you get a lot of info at once. Modern western sites on the other hand are all about minimalism and most of the time it means less info on the screen, and LOTS and LOTS of unnecessary scrolling and empty spaces

[@ITBEurgava]

Cram it until there is no breathing room? Oh well, there are different kinds of people...

[@eukarya_]

@@aDumbHorse Opposite of me, I get overwhelmed if there's too much going on, I'd rather have the information organized.

[@sidraket]

Yeah, i much preferred the layout of turn of the century internet. screens get higher and higher resolution, yet space gets more and more blank

[@thatxdamnxgirl7416]

Holy smokes I am blown away by the amount of thought, planning, and work that went into this video. GREAT JOB!

[@inodesnet]

This is such a perfect video for me right now! I am an Australian with over 20 years of experience in this industry. I work for a software company and spend all day on the computer screen and in the browser. But my family are Japanese, and we have moved temporarily to Japan in the past few weeks. It's driving me crazy! Being a tourist is one thing, but even before leaving Australia I had to deal with the Japan Airlines website. The design and flow isn't as bad as many, but behind the scenes its riddled with poor logic, terrible timeouts asking for the same information multiple time and is a displeasurable experience (I had to walk through booking 4 times just to get it done). By comparison Qantas's website (Australia's national carrier), is straightforward, logical and to the point. Next stop was the Immigration website which was required in the wake of Covid. I thought it was bad until I had to the same thing for Korea and the worst point here was that the Korea website needed me (as a non Korean tourist), to know the Korean postcode for my hotel, but strangely neither my booking nor Google had access to this. I literally had to Google "Korean Postcode converter". But now I am here in Japan with family setting them up for the year, and just dealing with anything that is backed by either software or the Japanese banking system is horrendous. The banking system needs its own comment - basically its cheaper and easier to use my Australian banking card here in Japan, that it is for a Japanese citizen to use their Japanese card. The fact this is true is madness. But the one site that takes the cake is Rakuten. My wife asked me to go on their and purchase a Nintendo Switch. Nope! Three minutes on that site, and my head is fried. It's busy, noisy, no logic. How can such a terrible website be so big here in Japan. Japan does so many things, so well. Japan is the benchmark for so many thing. But software backed things are not in the list. -- Worth noting I can ramble for so long about Japanese pursuit of perfection, minimalism, optimising for space (i.e. living space) and...... Zen. Glad you pointed this out as well. But maybe Japan is a geographical oxymoron as well. Heck, Greater Metropolitan Tokyo is still the most populated metropolis on the planet (albeit shrinking), but it's also been regarded by many surveys as the safest and certainly among the cleanest and well organised (no other countries measures late trains by seconds).

[@rrr-mi9kv]

Oh my god Rakuten is so bad yet they’re supposedly one of the leading web companies here and it blows my mind. The site looks like it’s out of the 90s.

[@Shalakor]

Is this why Nintendo Switch's internet connectivity is so bad?

[@ajmacphoto]

It explains a lot of what Sony has done.

[@ahnafj416]

This makes me laugh. Like what in the world is Japan?!?!???

[@TheDoomer666]

mucho texto

[@niamhw9208]

I’m not normally a commenter but had to write that the editing and work in this is top tier.

[@katscandance]

I also read somewhere, that due to the lack of variety of typefaces/fonts for Japanese and other Asian characters, designers rely more on using icons, photos, colors, and shapes to express the brand and differentiate themselves from other websites!

[@tcmax7837]

To add to this, in large part this could probably be chalked up to a technical limitation, as a japanese font can quickly baloon into 15+MB due to the sheer number of characters, making anything except default fonts pretty impractical for web use. Even if youre very strict and narrow your font down to only more common characters, youll probably hit about a megabyte for the font alone

[@voidstuffs2592]

This is a great example of what is often referred to as "archipelago syndrome". In short it's things that are made for specifically the Japanese market with no intention of profit outside of there. For instance; CD shops are still a thing and really big (mainly due to music companies and idol groups), a big game market for arcades and Japan only releases, and tech that never makes it outside of the Japanese market.

[@TheNobleFive]

Yeah. Japan's consumer market is large enough for mid-sized companies and corporations to find more growth without risking the chance of failed overseas expansion. It's also different enough that domestic success doesn't easily translate overseas. I get the impression that some Japanese industries only focus on overseas when the domestic market is either failing or so saturated there isn't much room for growth.

[@olliek8235]

honestly that explains a lot. i always wondered why any japanese rhythm game i play has a location or function themed around a cd shop since i (americana hadn’t seen that many at all usually

[@SI0AX]

@@olliek8235 Most CD shops were killed off when MP3's started taking off. Now Streaming services ended up taking out the MP3 players. I wonder what will end up taking out the steaming services in the future?

[@typicalsnapshot]

I don't know about the feeling of reward/frustration ratio when making these videos, but the amount of skills that come together, from research, programming and damn creative editing is so good. Keep it up peeps (If you want)

[@thorsday5505]

As a Chinese person I can confirm this is a shared esthetics in many CJK websites, and the exact reasons may slightly differ from county to county but generally your points seem good explanations to this phenomenon. Good work!

[@brodriguez11000]

That's why culture should have played a greater role. What is aesthetically pleasing is culturally dependent. We see that in other media, why not web design?

[@dominiqueaubert5977]

As someone who works for a Japanese company and is also somehow responsible for the digital marketing activities, this video is really interesting and informative. Thank you!

[@cynzyyy]

Actually, there are documented cultural reasons that support the theory that East Asian websites are way more dense. East Asians are generally attributed to be "holistic" thinkers, meaning they focus on the bigger context rather than individual details (as opposed to Western "analytic" thinkers). This difference allows East Asians to be better at processing a lot of information all at once, which then enables web designers to condense all the info onto ONE single page. Westerners who access these websites may be overwhelmed, but East Asians are used to this density. This isn't just a modern tech thing, it can be traced back through the art history of Eastern vs. Western art styles. Another argument is that growing up in populous metropolitan cities with busier environments affect how your brain processes a lot of information all at once, so East Asians, especially the Japanese, who grow up in dense urban areas with small physical spaces are accustomed to processing a lot of things all at once. It would not be surprising that websites reflect factors from their physically busier environments. There is a study (Wang, Masuda, Ito, & Rashid, 2012) that examined how people from different cultures presented information to others, specifically on East Asian websites. The same researchers also did another study on European Canadians and East Asians, where they found that East Asians are much faster at identifying a series of images within complex busy websites than the Canadians were.

[@BBP_BKK]

I just scroll through these thousands comments and finally found yours! Just want to give a like so it would be shown more. haha

[@dev.mufeedcm]

@@BBP_BKK same here :) searched through ctrl+f but still had to scroll

[@sangdrako]

Ha, Found it!

[@NecroDomoEPI]

Great contribution! And better still your subsequent video on this. (Gosh, I don't get how KZbin sorts the comments… Impossible to filter or interact properly with this messy system.)

[@spoonmanxx]

Was a little hard to find but there is your like

[@Supahelt98]

This was the best video, I’ve ever seen. The quality of jokes, video-material, audio-material… epic

[@RelicOnYoutube]

Never seen your content and I don’t know a lot about coding, but your engaging presentation and passion towards both the topic and coding kept me engaged the entire time. I subscribed mid way through the video and will enjoy browsing your content for when I need that burst of passion. Because watching you and hearing about your passion research project was a genuine enjoyable experience.

[@cheddar]

We at Cheddar have an expression that we use to guide story selection: the surprising answers to questions you didn't even know you had. This video hit that right on the head. Awesome stuff!

[@mexx2602]

The production value of this video is insane! Seldom was I this impressed just by how meticulous each and every shot was planned and executed. And this on top of the mountains of research! Keep it up, you're so great

[@sashamurashi225]

" Twitter might be dead when you watching this " People watching this in 2023: what's Twitter?

[@IvyANguyen]

This was an amazing study you did on Japanese web design. I like that they decided to go it alone as opposed to blindly doing what everyone else is doing.

[@purplelord8531]

this is like if an early tom scott video was just a little bit more crazy and 15 minutes of packed content. Really love this new era of popular educational channels, AoP has been leading the charge and doing amazingly well in doing so! Keep it up!

[@Crystalkayo]

I think Japan fast growing technology in the past made them adapt to one specific thing. But nowadays they are outdated in many aspects. As someone who live in Japan for 11 years, I can see the difference in web design and design in general. They got stuck with one thing and never changed, you can see this with fax machines, letters, personal stamps, and even documents that I could easily get it by email in other countries, in Japan I need to go pick it up myself after going to a whole process that could be simplified. Also I believe consumers don’t understand pages that are too simple, they get confused, because they are used to the cluttered websites. So is a matter of their mentality of ‘why should I change something if this works?’ Believe me, websites are just the tip of the iceberg. They overcomplicate so many things. Love the video by the way!

[@AlgharFriQQQ]

Great fan,You are among the shortlisted Winners ❤️ Use the Above name to Acknowledge your prize..

[@danielmounnarath4510]

I've travelled to Japan a number of times and too have noticed this. What is interesting is that the Japan were the pioneers that inspired Lean Manufacturing; so while it seems they adopt an efficiency and quality approach to factories/production of goods, they also seem to over engineer and have an affinity to "avoid mistakes at all costs". This could be what drives alot of controls for the most simplest of tasks and processes.

[@GopalKrishanAggarwal1]

CrystalKayo and Daniel's theories look quite correct to me. Contents on Japanese websites is too much packed. Is it because this was the norm 20 years ago and Japanese people could not change it or is it because that they inherently find packed content easier to browse. Assuming all humans are same, the latter shouldn't be the case. The several characters of Japanese language could have an effect but the youtuber, Sabrina-san already disproved that. What remains is the former theory that they couldn't simply change. That might indeed be true because Japanese people don't easily change if the status quo works for them. In Japan masks are still the norm right now when most people around the world has stopped wearing them. As CrystalKayo and Daniel said, whatever worked for web creators long time ago, they are still following that because they don't want to take the risk of change. Another reason could be older generation finds it harder to adopt to rapid changes in tech as compared to younger generation. And Japan has more older people than younger people. This could also be the reason for slow change.

[@LifeofBrad1]

I know I'm in an extreme minority here, but as someone who exclusively uses the internet on their PC, I prefer the old style websites that Japan still uses over the oversimplified ones designed around smartphones that we're forced to use here in the West. As someone who grew up in the late 90's-2000's, those old style websites are also so much more familiar to me. When I see them, I feel like I'm meeting an old friend and it makes me warm inside. The trend of minimalism here in the West is cold, soulless and feels downright hostile at times.

[@GopalKrishanAggarwal1]

@@LifeofBrad1 Interesting perspective. I can totally understand. I wonder how a child who is not attached to the old ways, think about the new vs old designs.

[@baazsingh7072]

I usually comment rarely , very near to never , but the time and effort taken to make this video , I can understand deserves it, This was one of the best videos in terms of research I have ever seen on youtube .

[@joemgap]

It's like "how to judge Japan's websites without actually reviewing even a single Japanese website thoroughly"... You got me there! I enjoyed your video.

[@Weegeeguy208]

i'm sure there was some review of specific japanese websites, it just wasn't specifically mentioned in the video for fear of making it extraneous. Sabrina even mentions in the video that she intentionally omits information she herself considers useful and interesting because it would make the videos too long and people would click away.

[@Cr3zant]

There's an entire website with all of the data gathered and used, maybe try taking a look at it.

[@jellystxrr]

I honestly miss the iconic bold letters, bright colors, all crammed into one screen. It was just so nostalgic.

[@Kkubey]

I think for personal webpages, people could just stop being all that professional and just try out what they'd like to show again. Same with social media in general.

[@Stephen-Fox]

If you mean you want geocities nostalgia, neocities has a lot of it (it also has modern personal sites in the "I need a site rather than a blog and can't justify paid hosting" genre of project)

[@monad_tcp]

I miss not needing to activate JS to use the internet

[@ajayparambath2416]

Kudos to sabrina. she literally done the impossible task of sorting out internet. next time do a reseearch on the chineese Internet. (China has a seperate internet)

[@MisterKageyama]

No matter how cramp or busy the UI looks, i love visiting japanese websites. Feels like a whole different world there.

[@yyy222y2]

Slightly unrelated, but another design trope that's different in Japan is how proster ads (like the ones you might find on the subway or at stations) represent how people can get to their websites. Most places would put the URL, but in Japan it's common to see the a search bar showing what keywords would get them to the website.

[@BirdmanDeuce26]

I just got flashbacks of all the ads that used to run with "AOL Keyword" alongside the actual address

[@CurrentlyHannah]

Thank you answering a question I’ve had for SO long! It’s also interesting to see how it impacts other forms of media in Japan, like tv/movies but including KZbin. If you look at the top KZbinrs in Japan, their thumbnails are remarkably busy, using a lot of text and bright colours with barely any negative space (*generally speaking ofc*), whereas on the side of English speaking KZbin, it benefits creators to declutter the frame, use minimal text, define clear subjects etc. Amazing video as usual!

[@HaydenX]

I first became a major Internet user in 1997, and became an "online literally all the time I can be" user in 1998. That hasn't changed much in the past ~25 years either. Because of this, I have seen all of these changes over time, and often find myself missing when you could just go to a page, get all of the content/info you needed entirely in text, and move on. At the same time, the absurd "overstimulation" style of early graphic webpages is also a bit nostalgic for me. I also think this might be part of the reason I was such a huge fan of Animutation when it was popular, and am still a huge fan of YTPs (I strongly recommend CS188 and DaThings here on YT if you haven't seen them...as well as old archive channels for Waxonator). I also very much miss Flash as a whole and remember when Newgrounds and AlbinoBlackSheep were my most visited sites.

[@MusicallyQ]

*I think a big part of it is just the way we look/see the characters used by the language.* *As a quick experiment I let Google Chrome translate most of the example sites provided, and was very surprised by the fact that they did not look so cluttered anymore.* *Seeing this makes me think that to someone who is familiar with these written languages,* *the layout and design may actualy not look that cluttered at all and a lot of it is simply our own western impression of said design.*

[@paulrobertsjapan]

Great video. We live in Yokohama and my wife usually works from home, but has to visit the office to process orders faxed in by her clients. This is a big company with several thousand employees. Japan tends to embrace change slowly, then all at once.

[@loveinthelandfill1124]

Tell your wife that I still care about her to this day.

[@Syd448]

That is wild! The company I work for sends and receives hundreds of faxes a day, but once the pandemic hit we were finally given the ability to fax paperwork out from our computers with RightFax. I can’t imagine having to drive into the office for just faxes

[@paulrobertsjapan]

@@Syd448 It's 1.5 hours each way on crowded trains. The irony is, her group contains an IT company but they just seem to do infrastructure work and never improve their software systems. All too common in Japan, I'm afraid.

[@samuraijosh1595]

is your wife a tennage japanese girl

[@loveinthelandfill1124]

Internet is a wild place lol

[@napofastar553]

can I just say the effort you guys put in to these videos is amazing and it blows my mind

[@robertfrank16]

The editing in all yalls videos is always top tier, but for some reason this one was really well done. 👏👏👏

[@andrewmeyers7053]

"Twitter was normal one day and then- it might be dead by the time you watch this".... well well well do I have something to tell you.

[@the_sim_crafter]

Just had the same thought 😂

[@Motoko_Urashima]

It still exists today, seems to be fine for me.

[@RAFO.]

the most charismatic smart and interesting storyteller. Netflix definetly needs you for tv show! I really believe that you will get some role there

[@lostinthesupermarket]

I beg to disagree, I find her extremely annoying and boring, she sounds so full of herself the whole video and the "jokes" aren't even funny. Not to mention the vocal fry which honestly does make her sound even more overbearing .But to each their own.

[@maxsnell3848]

It needs to be a different streaming service though, because Netflix will just cancel the show after 1 season because it's not bringing in new subscriptions anymore.

[@veryboringname.]

Sabrina is on the History Channel. Check out "History Remade witih Sabrina".

[@leodiscorpion3350]

cap

[@tinyblueflame7813]

As someone who had been doing fun coding side projects since before I hit puberty, but stopped somewhere in adulthood (got a job to keep and mouths to feed), you and both a bundle of nostalgia are aspiration for me. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these and yet making them so interesting and accessible.

[@FossilsAreCool2000s]

sorry life snuffed out your interest I hope you can find a way back to it sometime soon :)

[@windchime9720]

This video was shot and edited so incredibly well! Props to the editor.

[@ravirajsinhmakwana]

I fell in love with your story telling.. n the sheer amount of research and hardwork you put in this video.!! Honestly, your work deserves as much appreciation as the Japanese website are cluttered..(obviously take it as complement)