From Imitation to Innovation: Chinese Style in Web Design (Part Two)

China is a multi-ethnic nation with a history of 5,000 years of civilization. Its territory and culture extend most of Asia. Hanfeng and Chinese characters are mostly used by Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. China once prospered, and now the door has been reopened to accept the wave, concepts and technologies from the world, including Web technologies. This article interviewed six well-known Chinese designers, tells the history of the Chinese Web design industry from imitation to innovation. We interviewed six Chinese designers from four major cities and told us about the status quo and trend of domestic Web design. This is the second part of this article. The first part of the reference (above).

Author: License Jun Translator: Liu Qingtao

More cases The following is more Chinese-style website case, allowing you to have a better understanding of the domestic Web design.

UI Seven: a design studio

IDT: A personal website that records the author's 12-year love story

Youguan Cookies: Use Flash to showcase their product line

Xin Hongru: A design company that uses Chinese elements and Flash display works

Thinkpad Edge: Thinkpad notebook new

Moliyo MFM: Online game site, a bunch of links

361 Sports: Draws on Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games Theme

Dove Chocolate China: Chinese elements, Chinese New Year

BangbangWa: A food company, a lot of games and Flash

Brain Town: Personal works show

ShuXia: show member's work

Jossy Jo: Fabric brand

Apsou: A consulting company

Mole Lele: Cartoon artist's personal website

WEBE7 Enterprise Network Interactive: works show

Sanshen Toscana: a real estate company, a large number of Flash

Wotoon Design: a design company

Shaopan Film Studio

X'mas Tree Workshop: A game to design your own Christmas tree and send a greeting card to your friends

The GF Space: A design company

Magic Workshop: Children's clothing company, using Flash animation highlight the company culture

JJ Ying: A concise personal exhibition website

Beijing Orange Advertising: Creative Exhibition

Nescafe: Nescafe, lots of games and Flash

Yee Chino: A restaurant

Gold Chino: sister shop of Yee Chino

Guoguo Diary: Personal site, simple and creative.

Rancho Santa Fe: A real estate company in Shanghai

CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND TRENDS CHALLENGES When it comes to the challenges of the Internet industry, White Raven, Jun Chen, Rex and Zhou all talk of a frustrating issue: politics, government, auditing and investigation. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr are both banned by the government due to inappropriate content. White Crow said that in order to cater for the investigation, Sina's micro-blog also set up an artificial team to examine the content in addition to the automatic filtering of the machine.

The international community's discussions on the strict Internet and liberalization have continued (see 2010 Nussbaum) and there is no universal guideline, however. Without an open environment, China may not be able to work side by side with other countries.

However, there are two sides to anything, Crows said that despite the perspiration, there is a positive aspect to UI design and content presentation, and you will have to focus on useful content and effective presentation of the content on.

Wu Jun-chen and Rex mentioned another challenge, that is, education has not yet come together. Vocational schools can teach you how to use Photoshop, Dreamweaver, teach you how to write HTML, CSS, JavaScript code, but it will not teach you the thinking and logic behind the design. Web is still a young industry, and in institutions of higher learning there is no degree in information architecture and user experience design.

Our interview points to the fact that Chinese designers have not fully benefited from rigorous survey methodology, as many Chinese designers know about these concepts, as Wu Jun-chen said, but they seldom use specific designs They know about usability testing but seldom do it.

When asked how to persuade customers to accept a design, Rex Song mentioned the relationship and trust, he felt A / B test, the concept of multivariate test is very Western, its input and output may not be high.

On the one hand, it can be understood that China is better at subjective reasoning due to the influence of the traditional Confucianism and Taoism. On the other hand, Chinese web designers still have a long way to go in terms of user research.

One could argue that the designer's job is to simply design it, and in fact, your design needs support, which can affect your layout, color matching, and user interaction. Only 25% of designers who follow that feeling are right. Neilsen Norman Group conducted a study in 2009 and concluded that it is not as good as tossing a coin for advice from these people. This of course can not be generalized, but illustrates the importance of the data.
Opportunities and Trends The following is an interview with 6 interviewees on the opportunities and trends of domestic web design.

Question: In your opinion, what is the trend of domestic Web design?

Guo Yu: E-commerce. Do you know Taobao, my female colleagues where to buy condiments, mustard and snacks, etc. I have never heard of Taobao thing. They like it. This is the Chinese market, there is demand, I think every company should make good use of.

White crow: I think the domestic Web design will be more and more to the user to generate content in the direction of development. For example, the success of the domestic watercress network, the online book and movie community, and YouTube, most of the content created by the user, by the way, the watercress earlier than YouTube.

The next few years, e-commerce will flourish in the country, e-commerce has nothing to do with ideology, will not be examined%, and people need.

Wu Junchen: to create more value for customers, listen to what they say, see what they do, what they do, think what they want, I believe the domestic Web design will be better and better, a spiral upward trend.

Weeks: Focus on users and services, there will be no flashy things, features, industry standards, to meet customer needs is the future trend, to jump out of the circle thinking.

John Woo: easy to use, practical and easy to use. Dazzled the site, red is not necessary. Focus on the essential needs of users. Amagatarai KTouch phone is very popular in the country recently, I bought 6, 4 with big screen and handwriting input for parents and parents, a with 3x optical zoom 800-megapixel camera, one looks like a lady Toner Amagatarai is a cottage manufacturers, but they have a good market share in the country, why, because the focus on customer needs. The same website.

Rex Song: We develop our own Web design style under Chinese culture. In terms of metrics, we will be in sync with the mainstream of the world, creating a more user-centric design and delivering a better user experience.
Summary The domestic Web is still young, and Chinese designers are catching up. Despite the challenges, we see more opportunities, clever people, a huge market, increasing demand, and flexible, innovative, user-oriented Center of thinking. In the current domestic website, we have seen a spiraling trend from imitation to innovation.
This article was written by Kejun Xu and Hendry Lee

Kejun Xu, Licensed Jun, Information Architect, is dedicated to usability research, user experience design and user research. Also engaged in translation, happy cross-cultural exchange. Her design theory is designed for the user to make her user more comfortable. She occasionally writes a blog about UXRnD (User Experience Research and Design), recording a bit about life and work.

Henry Lee helps people deal with the challenges of blogging, with blogs, website building, strategies, hosting, social media, web writing, and design on their blogs. Their team can also help individuals or companies create websites, and you too You can meet him on Twiiter.

International Source in this article: Smashing Magazine Showcase of Web Design in China: From Imitation to Innovation

Chinese Authorized Translation Source: Sharp Enterprise CMS website content management system official website