I still remember Baidu's home page, at least the pc browser home page, from 20 years ago. Made Yahoo's home page look calm; I almost had an epileptic seizure and never went back. I wonder who does good interface design in China's market?
I used to think Chinese webpages were just badly designed too, but that’s simply the style people prefer here. The crowded layout looks overwhelming and “ugly” to me as well, but that’s just how it is. And since people barely use webpages or email and do almost everything on their phones, webpage design isn’t really important here. Pinduoduo basically doesn’t even have a webpage.
Took me a while to get used to as well—same with the apps, very crowded look compared to US apps. Some Chinese apps even change the UI if you switch from Chinese to English.
The language allows for some UI elements to be communicated in 1-4 characters which is nice. But they definitely like their dense communication. Just watch any video on Bilibili with the bullet text on 🤣
I love these case studies. Neijuan in action. Alibaba seems to be firing on all cylinders once again, while Baidu is taking a page from Texas Instruments (great engineering, terrible marketing).
What an incredibly informative and thoughtful article!
I used Google Maps in China back in 2018 and of course it was awful.
This year I used Baidu and Gaode side by side without any preconceived notions on either. It was really cool seeing lane info and traffic light timing in the apps. I ultimately thought Gaode was easier to use and had more capabilities and (if I recall) more reviews for restaurants etc. so I settled on that.
I still remember Baidu's home page, at least the pc browser home page, from 20 years ago. Made Yahoo's home page look calm; I almost had an epileptic seizure and never went back. I wonder who does good interface design in China's market?
I used to think Chinese webpages were just badly designed too, but that’s simply the style people prefer here. The crowded layout looks overwhelming and “ugly” to me as well, but that’s just how it is. And since people barely use webpages or email and do almost everything on their phones, webpage design isn’t really important here. Pinduoduo basically doesn’t even have a webpage.
Took me a while to get used to as well—same with the apps, very crowded look compared to US apps. Some Chinese apps even change the UI if you switch from Chinese to English.
The language allows for some UI elements to be communicated in 1-4 characters which is nice. But they definitely like their dense communication. Just watch any video on Bilibili with the bullet text on 🤣
Damn I had no idea about the history behind this. Thanks for doing the research and sharing - great piece!
I found this very informative
This is the Patience and Bidding for time I mentioned earlier on the stuff I learnt from reading Chinese Novels
I love these case studies. Neijuan in action. Alibaba seems to be firing on all cylinders once again, while Baidu is taking a page from Texas Instruments (great engineering, terrible marketing).
What an incredibly informative and thoughtful article!
I used Google Maps in China back in 2018 and of course it was awful.
This year I used Baidu and Gaode side by side without any preconceived notions on either. It was really cool seeing lane info and traffic light timing in the apps. I ultimately thought Gaode was easier to use and had more capabilities and (if I recall) more reviews for restaurants etc. so I settled on that.
Love the racy presentation. Engaging read.