Tag: culture

Japan Web Design Is Different

Go on a safari around Japan’s most popular sites and here’s what you can expect to find:
Dense tightly packed text
Tiny low-quality images
More columns than you can count
Bright clashing colors and flashing banners
Overuse of outdated technologies like Flash.
The theories for why this is are numerous.
Risk Avoidance – In general Japanese culture does not encourage risk taking or standing out from the crowd. Once a precedent has been set for things looking or behaving a certain way then everybody follows it, regardless of whether there is a better solution. Even Japanese subcultures conform to their own fashions and rules.
Consumer Behavior – People require a high degree of assurance, by means of lengthy descriptions and technical specifications, before making a purchasing decision – they are not going to be easily swayed by a catchy headline or a pretty image. The adage of “less is more” doesn’t really apply here.
Advertising – Rather than being seen as a tool to enable people Japanese companies often see the web as just another advertising platform to push their message across as loudly as possible. Websites ends up being about the maximal concentration of information into the smallest space akin to a pamphlet rather than an interactive tool.
Urban Landscape – Walk around one of Tokyo’s main hubs like Shibuya and you’re constantly bombarded with bright neon advertisements, noisy pachinko parlors, and crowds of rambunctious salary men or school kids. The same chaotic busyness of the streets seems to have spilled over to the web. Added to this, because physical space comes at a premium in Japan, none of it is wasted and the same goes for negative/white space on a webpage.

Lines are overrated

amen.

the line, and the accompanying difficulty of getting a reservation, is a way of marketing the restaurant to potential customers. Which means the place needs marketing in some manner, which means its audience is in some way not so well-informed about where they ought to be eating. They tend to be trendy people who follow…lines. Conformists, in other words.

example: that stupid ramen place in nyc, ippudo.

Olympics in the same place

indeed, why not? much cheaper and you could build an olympics city-state on an island.

Short argues Olympics Island could be an ongoing experiment in sustainability and architecture, with facilities upgraded and new ideas tested, and with far fewer of the social or environmental costs than in existing cities. It could also standardize the sporting element, providing a stable setting and climate against which to benchmark athletic performances over time.

Scifi formula

For all the great special effects and enormous, booming noises our films are bringing us now, the majority of science fiction films have forgotten the one thing science fiction is supposed to do: make us think about the future.

scifi flicks are following a predictable and boring formula:

  1. Science is Bad.
  2. Robots are Evil.
  3. Dystopia is Our Future.

and fail to make us think about the future. worrying is not thinking.

Declining ownership fetish

in related news, we have also passed peak boring lifestyle.

America’s homeownership rate has been declining for several years, and for multiple reasons, some tied directly to the housing collapse. For one class of would-be homeowners, it’s simply harder today to qualify for a mortgage than it was at the height of the housing boom. For another, the allure of homeownership itself has declined. And then of course there are people who were homeowners until the crash nudged them off of their property.

You Are Not an Artisan

loved the essay for the term conspicuous production alone.

The future of work looks bleaker than it needs to for one simple reason: we bring consumption sensibilities to production behavior choices. Even our language reflects this: we “shop around” for careers. We look for prestigious brands to work for. We look for “fulfillment” at work. Sometimes we even accept pay cuts to be associated with famous names. This is work as fashion accessory and conversation fodder.

We can think of this as conspicuous production, by analogy to conspicuous consumption. First-world artisan tendencies take this to a logical extreme.