Warum Japans Internet seltsam aussieht – es sei denn, Sie leben hier: Die großen Webportale Japans sind mit Links, Symbolen und Grafiken übersät und liefern Informationen in voller Lautstärke und spiegeln eine Online-Kultur wider, die Fülle gegenüber leerem Raum bevorzugt

My pet peeve about Japanese websites (especially governmental and institutional ones) is that there is more focus on text heavy explanations of things than in making a simple process that needs little explanation in the first place.

For example, at my job, they will have a new payroll system that they want all the employees to register for. The straightforward way to do this would be to put a link to that system in the very same email notifying people they need to register to it, and once they click on it, have a simple system That explains the information you need to give as you move from page to page until completion.

Instead, they link you to a four page PDF with a detailed explanation of everything you need to do to register for the system.

The thing is, even when web designers push a cleaner, more modern aesthetic, the customer says they want it to look more like a “traditional” website, or that their end users expect it to be that way.