As a Chinese, I deeply hate this over-designed UI/UX trend in China. Many of those fancy colorful widgets and buttons are actually slowing down my poor phone (not to mention the disgusting shakey ADs). More importantly, most of those functions are not part of the core app! Imagine you can complete lending services in almost any application, even in Chinese Uber! These buttons are actually like many micro clickbaits hoping to attract your precious attention. SIn this case, every app in my phone take up more than 3-4 Gb of storage even if I barely use them, and WeChat app is actually can be over 50-100 Gb in someone's phone! So I changed my phone language in to English for a purer experience and less-noisy UI.
Yea this is also one disadvantage of a monopolized app market structure, where the market leader is trying to pull everyone , but in some sense creates trash for another individual. This can create a notion where more is less 🤷♂😁
Yeah, I’ve tried some apps that try the combo experience, like Outlook Mail+Calendar, Snapchat Messaging+Tiktok Clone, YT Shorts+Long form+music player, etc, and they all do one thing well at most. I like having a single inbox for email, but my university email (outlook exchange) has next to zero compatibility and blocks every client. Outlook Mail lacks a proper refresh button, most TikTok clones dilute and clutter the experience of an app while adding very very little value (I’ve never seen a Snapchat story highlight promoted that isn’t spam or awful, although the Snap Map is nice). Facebook is terrible for trying to see actual content (no moderation and lots of AI), but it has a nice system for buy sell groups. Like, maybe Chinese companies just QA test their apps a lot more than western companies, but whenever I see an app that does more than one thing, it usually still only does one thing well. If anything, the lack of tactility is more of an annoyance to me than having to switch apps (especially since iOS rarely allows multi instancing apps, a super app would probably be hard to multitask with) (although I acknowledge that it could be different for a online culture more used to smartphones over PCs). I think if I wanted a super app like combo experience, I’d rather just be able to install mods or plugins to add those features. Edit: I hate overly minimalist designs too ofc, since they require a lot more to navigate. My ideal is probably just being able to hide superfluous icons, but also having everything laid out accessibly
Indeed. Especially when phone prices rack up when you get one with larger storage size, this would be quite unideal. Any ideas for how to workaround this?
'Cos it is a de facto OS. All the various functionalities (save chat, payment and insta-like videos and posts) come from installing the so-called mini-apps, which instead of being installed on Android from the Play store or the Baidu store, they are installed from the Wechat store that sits within the Wechat app. It's like the Java Runtime Environment, but on steroids.
@@phoebeyutbt Operating systems are essentially the original "super apps." They allow integration of various features and applications (payments, messaging, and shopping). When someone claims that an all-in-one app is a novel concept, we long had this functionality in the form of OS.
That because 3rd party app developer doesn't bother to integrate, not an OS limitations. If you want to see seamless interapp integration. Look at suit of apps from Google and Samsung. They are also more lightweight, request appropriate permissions, can be optionally installed, provide proper support for split screen multitasking, searchable in your app drawer,...
That's what Facebook has been trying to do for ages. They tried to become Amazon, Tiktok, UA-cam all in one but ultimately failed. Only China the concept of super app works
I don't think most chinese ux design is cluttered on purpose, I think when you design an app with one function, and then add more features later on, it forces the app to become cluttered, as opposed to designing a multipurpose app from the beginining. Chinese consumers are very aware of good design, and chinese companies like DJI, Xiaomi, understand design. Their cars, user interfaces, home appliances all have good clean, minimilist design. Chinese brains are no different to Western brains, or any other human brain, they have just become accustomed to clutter. But good design defintely exists in China, from Architecture to enviornment design to Ui's. the real question is...how would YOU design a multipurpose app that doesn't look cluttered. It takes a lot of effort and brain power. it's much easier to just cram something on, then build from the ground up.
Realistically, multi billion corporations have enough resources to make good design - they just don't. Expansion, profit, new features > comfortable user experience.
This is a trashy post upvoted because of cultural bias. “Good” design is opinion. Culture influences people’s brains and perception so to say their brains are the same is silly. To say that certain products “understand design”, just because they conform to your standards and desires of design shows some lack of awareness of one’s own preferences.
its quite a similar situation here in Indonesia. I notice that a lot of homegrown apps somewhat lean more into a ux philosophy similar to Chinese app design, where all apps are multi-purpose, ex. gojek, tokopedia, dana; but still implement quite a western approach with ui, something more clean and somewhat minimal. I find people here tend to have the expectation that they should be able to do a lot of things with the same app, but also want it to be a more clean user interface.
shopee and dana are sooo influenced by chinese apps. shopee looks straight up like a chinese e-commerce, down to their 7-days return policy that they’ve implemented lately. and shopee works really well here
@@bels4840 Yup, and that's one thing I dislike about Shopee's app and website design tbh. It feels unnecessarily cluttered, especially with the pop-up video when I go into the product page. Some buttons are small for no reason like the Favourite button, and at times it can be unclear which text is a button and which is only text.
Same in the Philippines. Grab is a super app in SEA. We can book a cab, order food, and pay with QR. Although we use a different mobile wallet like GCash or Maya, so it still kind of uses a Western approach in UI.
Exactly! 😂 Multipurpose function in apps that doesn't need to really confuse me. Kayak, fitur live ngapain sih bisa ada di marketplace serius sumpeh akwkwkw
I liked the video, but I disagree with the statement that cluttered UIs mean more info. You can have a lot of info with an uncluttered design. And I think that uncluttered UI/UXs ultimately help the users find/do what they want. You can have super-apps with clean designs, here again one doesn’t mean the other. Look at Uber, they have car riding, scooters, food delivery, car rental in a pretty clean app.
In the context of a super app, it is more information whether you like it or not. Where I live all those Uber functions are in separate unrelated apps. I've never seen a Uber super app.
You clearly didn't understand what you watched. These apps provide a ton of useful information and functionality in a single screen. You can't do that in an simple, uncluttered design because there is not enough space.
As a westerner I personally don't like these types of designs. They are like visual noise that I can't wait to get away from. To me, one app or company that handles everything in such a manner is monopolistic and stifles potential competition. Additionally, whenever I see design like that my brain immediately registers it as tacky and scammy. For me, less is more.
I feel like you completely fail to talk about it from the actual development side of things. You make it sound like the people using it chose this kind of software, but I don’t think you really have a choice but to use the apps because so much of your life depends on it. So if a couple apps have a monopoly it’s way less incentive to compete in niches and really optimize a certain experience. The apps look this way because of the power structures within the company, the amount of control they give to designers, UX people etc. there’s something called Conways law that states that the structure of a product is defined by the structure of the people working on it. I think it would be way more interesting to see what development culture leads to this kind of design. Also I feel like you missed how bloated these apps truly are, they take gigabytes and gigabytes, everything tries to do everything and usually not even particularly well. There’s so much duplication of features and so many ways to get scammed or make mistakes. It’s a ridiculously unstructured ecosystem
Hi MegaMaster, thank you for your feedback. You’ve got a fair point on development. While I take a design and psychology approach to these analyses, it’ll be hard to dismiss how culture of companies themselves + business incentives may influence design. Any resources you’d recommend to start reading into this?
@@phoebeyutbt I mentioned it in my original comment, but I think one thing that definitely is very important to understand why some things are how they are is conways law. Here's a very interesting video going into what exactly it means ua-cam.com/video/5IUj1EZwpJY/v-deo.html He's trying to give as much context as possible, it's really worth the watch, even if you're not interested in software at all. especially the examples he gives about the 5 different windows UI volume controls is very interesting. Basically the end result the user sees is defined by the teams that worked on the app itself. these socalled super Apps are iiiincredibly hard to design and incredibly complex, so you need to somehow divide it into teams, and these teams need to communicate with each other. If the communication is effective you will see an end result that is effective and somewhat mirrors the way the teams are. But if you take into account how collectivistic cultures work, taking individual responsibility, the importance of workplace ettiquette, how easy it is to follow the status quo, how strongly throwing stuff away is penalised, how managers are incentivised, etc etc. then you begin to see half the picture. the other half is even worse communication between teams, if you consider that these super apps have entire companies that create mini apps inside the main app. there's virtually no communication or coordination between the main superapp teams and the mini app team, and especially no communication between different mini app teams. This is not even specific to chinese apps, but applies to any ecosystem, windows is an incredibly good example of how fragmented and convoluted these things can get. The way you can visualise this easily is "okay what if we unified the design and programming of it?" let's say WeChat spends a billion dollars on making the entire app minimalistic and reworking everything from the ground up with a really good scientifically proven, amazing UX and UI, super clean, while still having that classic Chinese flair without being too complicated for new users or elderly people. You would still regularly see very incoherent and incompatible things, just because WeChat can only update their own codebases and designs, while they have so many different delivery apps, and small micro services that are handled by completely other companies. Anyways, hope this helps.
@@phoebeyutbt If you want to know more about the rise of Chinese tech and the tech landscape in China check out AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order Hardcover by Kai-Fu Lee. Obviously the focus is on AI, but he does a good job of explaining the Chinese tech landscape and mentality compared to Silicon Valley.
It's not an introvert thing lol, a lot of introverts like complexity. Also this introvert concept needs to be deleted, it groups very different people in one category
Funny thing is that many western apps in the late 90s and early 2000s also had cluttered designs. I think at some point we accepted minimalism as being modern.
Actually, there are four significant reasons overlooked by this focus on culture - genuine underlying legal, administrative, and political causes for a lack of “super-apps” outside of China: 1. Antitrust & competition laws in developed nations prevent monopolies like WeChat from forming. 2. IP laws protect innovation by new apps from being copied by larger competitors and amalgamated into their own “super-apps” like WeChat. 3. Data protection laws protect consumers’ information from being circulated between multiple platforms within a “super-app”, and to outside third parties. 4. The lack of a truly free market in China strongly distorted historical app development, with “super-apps” more the result of specific centralized decision making, rather than the result of genuinely collective popular choices. Political will from the central government has had a stronger impact than allowed for in this video (e.g., internet blocking, no data privacy, censorship, etc.) The last of these points is clearly demonstrated by the lack of “super-apps” in every other collectivist Asian culture, from Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong to Vietnam, Japan, and Singapore (all of which use non-Chinese apps).
To be honest, I watched the video and I still don’t get the decision behind very bad UI design. Super app doesn’t have to equal bad design. You can have a super app with good design, good UX and high context, without having ugly pixilated icons …
You might not fully understand it because you’re overlooking the cultural factor. From the perspective of people-in this case, from China-we need to understand their social context, needs, customs, and history. The girl keeps reminding us: culture is a programming. For us, it might look ugly because we’re familiar with other UIs, we have different needs, habits, and culture. What seems ugly and like bad UX to us is, for them, what works and meets their needs (also considering that there may be a stronger business bias than in the West). As a UI/UX designer, it’s important to research and study. What works here won’t work everywhere.
I agree. Interesting question, but the answer was on a very simple level - because of culture. Lol, thats not even an answer. Look at ancient chinese art, dynamic composition, lots of white space, while european art at the same time was like let's clutter everything symmetrically along the central axis. Look at Chinese porcelain, everything is cluttered, but the composition and visual aesthetics are stunning. Urbanization and increasing density only started in the late 20th century, its too early to talk about how it affected culture. The first chinese printed books (scrolls) look finer than modern chinese apps (overall layout and aesthetics) and have more connection to international/swiss style.
because she didn't really explain it. If she is truly explaining cultural differences, she should've compared multiple apps from Eastern vs Western culture. China is by no means an island on its own (unless you're perceiving it from a political standpoint). If you're making an argument distinguishing app UI/UX from a collective society versus individualist society, there are plenty of examples (i.e., India, S Korea, Japan, etc) to draw parallels. But it feels more like she using a priori reasoning to draw her conclusions. The way I see it, without doing any research, is that when a company like WeChat dominates the market (holding monopoly), then it can throw in ads and all sorts of junks and users don't really have a choice but to accept it as is. Whereas in US, if PayPal's design turns off users, they can go to Revolut, CashApp, Venmo, and on and on. So in this competitive environments, you have to be keenly aware of the users' experience. Not so much when you are the dominate (only) player in the market and throw in whatever icon you want
@@TerranceYuI agree with you. Unfortunately, she doesn't really go into the differences in the video, but merely gives cultural differences as a pretext. Another reason why there are only SuperApps in countries like China is that the politically desired absence of the big American tech companies has created a vacuum that could be filled by local pre monopolists. This also explains well enough why SuperApps will always fail here, apart from the fact that these monopoly constructions would be prohibited everywhere. This space is already filled by Google und Co. One more thing occurred to me. In terms of data protection, it must be a nightmare for users of a SuperApp to have everything they do there tracked by a provider. But here we are not much different from the operators of the SuperApps, as Meta, Google & Co. actually track us everywhere.
Simply put: a large number of Chinese users, even most of them, do not care about aesthetics, which is also why Pinduoduo, the parent company of Temu is extremely popular in China by being ridiculous cheap with even shittier app design.
Many of the national-wide apps in China now add "elderly mode" / "lite mode", which uses very large fonts and icons hence the content becomes super concise. The intention was making the app more accessible by those elderly who are unfamiliar with smart phones and have trouble reading small texts on the screens. Some of the apps also allow the customization for users to pick the functions that they want to be placed on the home screen of the app given the limited space. As far as I know, in addition to the elderly, a certain amount of young people (including me) are are switching to this mode as well.
I think nuance in this context means more details. I think of it like when you see product comparison charts that give you a summary then the option for more details. Here it would be that they would prefer seeing the chart with more details first.
More information means more potential cluttering. I think it’s a matter of will to clean up the clutter. I mean, you can have lots of information without cluttering it as much.
I just graduated as an UX designer in Europe, and Asian design was never mentioned. i consume a lot of Asian media and I had to fight back the learnings at school because I was looking at designs that went against the things they teach us while still being successful. A big miss there.
An app being 'successful' (user adoption, user spending, user retention, etc) does not mean it therefor offers 'good' UX. Asian UX design is effective, Western UX design is efficient.
i was taught about east asian interface designs briefly, but more so in the context that you should always design for a specific type of user because their expectations and understanding can be wildly different depending on factors like culture, identity, and circumstance. unless you specifically design for east asian markets i don’t think it’s a particularly necessary wealth of knowledge you need to access. in fact i was never taught shit about right to left interfaces like those with arabic copy. but there’s no insight i could glean from that unless i was explicitly designing for middle eastern markets
This is such an interesting topic. I’m a software engineer but I’ve always found UX design interesting. It reminds me how UI in video games made by Japanese studios also look very different from western designs.
This is true, because customers are more willing to exchange their personal info for more convenience after they have done it once on that very app. Just look at the difference between original Facebook and the Facebook of now with Marketplace, Instagram, and all the other websites and apps that offer easy registrations with Facebook.
To simplify, western apps are separated because "there's an app for that" was our introduction to apps as a mindset and monopolies are generally frowned upon and competition is seen as a positive thing. If one app does something better than another we use that instead or use both (in the cases of lyft and uber checking for which has the best priced ride). People may use websites like Kayak or something to check prices of flights across many providers, but if you buy a ticket through them and something bad happens, the customer service is a middleman instead of the main provider.
@@user-yk7mn7we2i because it is scary. What happens when the one-true-app locks your account? You''ll be locked out of everything that app does. All your eggs in THEIR basket (not your basket). And they can lock you out on a whim.
the biggest irony is that in a “free market” capitalist system like in the west, monopolies eventually dominate over everything and there won’t be many alternatives. in china there’s these multipurpose apps but also more alternatives
This comparison is only halfway there. If you realize that the super-apps are basically a package of apps in their own ecosystems, you should be comparing their UI to a system of similar level: the OS. You wouldn't be comparing the super-app's main menu to a western app main menu; you should be comparing it to the desktop/home-screen menu of the phone. Your phone's home screen is usually filled with app icons, one for each feature you use your phone fore, just as much as the super-app is filled with icons for each feature. So you should compare the super-app main menu to your home screen, while comparing a western app main menu to a sub-menu of the super-app.
It's an interesting take, but I feel this analysis is missing a few key points: * Super Apps exist in China in the void created by the ban of the Google App Play Store. These apps are kind of creating their own "Android on top of Android". * Are alternatives to super apps really available in China? If "dense & feature rich & mono-app" has no competition vs the western "minimalist & simple & multi-app", it's hard to tell if users actually prefer this option. They might be using it simply because it beats what came before (ex: cash, wire transfers, Debit Cards or simply nothing).
The mobile leapfrogging not only because it's cheaper, but also for a very important reason: it's more user-friendly for most people, especially older people and those without much education. Using a computer requires at least some basic knowledge, unlike the mobile platform which is based on intuition.
Having used Google Maps vs Naver Maps (South Korea) and GaoDe Maps 高德地图 (China), I find Google Maps lacking in features. I don't mind steep learning curves for apps that are used daily. Even as a tourist spending a week or two in SK and China, I got used to their interface pretty quickly and missed them when I'm back to using Google Maps in my home country. Features like: -Traffic light turning green in XX seconds -Exact lanes to use (with road visualisation) -Metro costs and schedules -Metro quick entry and exit (Google Maps has this in some countries but they are much inferior) Thanks for creating these videos! I am really passionate in UI/UX design and your videos give good perspectives on how different countries behave.
I was searched how the traffic lights noticing feature implemented. It needs to install 5G module on the traffic lights and the navigation app can communicate with the traffic lights to get countdowns. Needs heavy investment on infrastructure. China use this not just for traffic light notice but preparing for full automatic driving.
Naver Maps really is something different. Used it while visiting SK for a week, was amazed by how seamless & convenient was the integration for the Metro.
It seems like you might not fully understand how Google Maps works. The app doesn’t lack features; rather, it’s about how well it connects with local systems. You mentioned that in China, the Naver map app shows real-time changes in traffic lights. This is possible because the app is directly integrated with the local traffic department, making it easier to implement such features. Google, on the other hand, is available in almost every country, unlike Naver, which is specifically built for SK and and some others same as china. While Google could technically implement similar features, they face challenges due to varying infrastructure levels across different countries. Google aims to provide a consistent experience globally, and some countries might lack the infrastructure needed to support these advanced features.
There is another theory for “all-in-one” something. Another name for it is “vertical integration” meaning merging different business process steps together, in one company or app. As opposed to to having different (specialized) companies or apps for each step. Vertical integration usually happens when outer infrastructure works poorly and turns out that a company cannot expect that outside services will work as smoothly as its own internal processes. For example, company cannot rely on external payments to work smoothly and creates its own payment system.
I don't think this explains why it "works". The /technology/ works, but as for the design, it /hurts/ the experience. Redundant buttons and clutter make the experience worse because it's hard to quickly read and navigate. The reason this tech is like this is probably - internal office politics (like, Janet is dating the boss, so we can't delete this button) and - forces of monopolies (no one's competing with us so it doesn't matter). Edit: Anyways, I'm glad you brought this to peoples' attention. I've thought about this a lot over the years...
you just think it "clutters" the experience because you're used to western design and it's a different style of interface and school of thought. A lot of text put together may be hard to read in roman alphabets, but that's not the case for mandarin where reading recognition is a lot faster.
@@shinluis I've used both interfaces a fair amount over the years. I don't think reading recognition is in general faster for Mandarin - do you have reasons to believe this? Edit: just to be clear, I think the video is really cool, and I hope she makes more! Very interesting stuff! Hope I’m not coming off as a totally terrible person, hahah…
me on the other hand hates this "minimalism" design where I need to navigate 5-6 sub menus with properties under 'buttons' that doesn't make sense to be there. Lost are the days where I could change my password under some Settings menu or under my Profile menu.
@@jmarcos06 Good point. Apple hides things in random menus to give the illusion of simplicity, That can hurt the experience for users who want to do use advanced functions IMO. Chinese apps/web seem to have button redundancies growing out their ears, though... Which I think probably hurts the experience, especially for grannies and kiddos or anyone who just wants to get things done and move on with their lives. I'm probably an advanced user, but I think it probably makes sense to prioritize grannies and kiddos.
I lived in a cluttered place myself and the last thing I want is this cluttered design on my apps too. Super app is understandable and make sense, but being a super app doesn't mean the UI needs to be cluttered as well. The e-commerce app in my country has that cluttered design as well and I ended up not even looking at it. This is psychological because it's overwhelming the brain with too much information
I don’t really like this idea of letting a single entity hold onto all of your data connecting all the dots from who you chat to, to what you chat about (since encryption isn’t common in China), what you are buying, & who you are buying it thru. There is no privacy in this. I’m happy Thailand is still (at present) a cash-first society & it lets me leave the phone at home or not have the government or corporations track all of my spending. I know foreign tourists, & some of the younger generation want to do everything on their phones, but the older ones don’t (partially probably to under report income for taxes, but also distrust of the government). Personally, I also actively _try_ to keep my application usage minimal *and* separated to have no data or minimized centralized data wherever possible. I understand this video isn’t an attempt to pass judgment to a side, but seeing this, I am scared about the folks that find this approach appealing as a sign of digital hygiene naïvety. …And I think the ‘leapfrogging’ concept has a lot to do with this as there is less understanding about how computers or the internet actually operates (not everyone can be expected to be an expert, but in the past, usually someone in your circle took on the duty of helping making smart decisions with your personal best interest in mind instead of defaulting to an app store).
This said, Thailand has it’s over-reliance on LINE which as someone without an account now has made a lot of things trickier than they ought to be. Also with all the bank apps having weird restrictions on what you can run their apps on so skipping out on those apps too, is a massive inconvenience when I _need_ to make a digital payment.
If you don't do anything wrong, you've got nothing to be scared. Truth is, the average person is a lot safer in China than in the US. Westerners are waaay too paranoid about this concept of privacy and being a secret hidden anonymous who can't be tracked down by big bad evil companies or governments. Trust me Snowden already exposed to you guys your attempts at doing so are useless and meaningless. We here in Asia don't give a crap about that fictional novelty privacy like you... We just want convenience with everyday life. Feel free to make up hassles in your own mind to worry about, haha.
I think it has its pros and cons. One thing I like about a cluttered "home" interface is, the app shows you everything that is possible right out the gate. With American-style UX, you can use a program for YEARS never knowing most of its features because they are hidden away, and it's recommended to read about everything an app can do and how to find those features in the interface.
Great insight. As a new product manager designing international platform app serving Chinese and the western world, i now noticed that I am pushing minimalism in my design too hard since I am familiar with Apple-ish design. I need to rethink culture and possibility of having 2 version of the same app.
This video opened my eyes and made me think of how ppl view things from cultural vantage point. The idea of trust & reassurance from many dependable services being available on the screen was a revelation. This is a great video. Thank you for so thoughtfully putting it all together, hugely helpful and enjoyable
I am a Chinese. I don't find Chinese like these kinds of design. Myself hate it because it is hard to find what you want. Actually, this bad design is not just on Chinese apps. Windows OS and its applications like Word, Excel and Linux windows etc. are all bad alike. They are not Chinese applications. I don't think the design is because of Culture. It is simply a bad habit or trends. If we want to relate it to local culture, it might be related to the habit of competing the number of functionalities. this is not just Chinese, software vendors tends to compete this way.
I hate that every click of the website create a new window for that click, instead of loading the new link onto the same page, in another word, just refresh it !
We have to remember that East Asian pictorial language allows for “cluttered” UI because you can use less characters to express more meaning. The same cannot be done with latin based languages. Chinese, for example, can use four characters to express the same meaning as a full 10 or even 15 English word sentence. You can extrapolate how much more information can be shown on screen using Chinese characters than English words. Eastern Asian app design takes full advantage of this. Edit: We also have to consider that information processing speed is in high demand for countries with high pop density. There is no time to switch between apps when you’re trying to buy something because there is over 20 people behind you in line on a daily basis. So there is a demand to process payment as quickly as possible so the line doesn’t clog up because one person has to constantly switch apps. Thus, all of the functions get centralized into one super-app, allowing information processing speed to dramatically increase.
I'm from Russia (currently live in the UK), and some of the biggest apps are trying to replicate this Chinese model. e.g. VK used to be just a Russian clone of Facebook. now it's a messenger, social network, payment app.. there are games, you can even order food I think, etc. I guess this is what happens when state-owned or state-related capitalism becomes the norm in a country
I was so against the "cluttered" design, but I kept watching and Im so glad I did. Never thought that culture would impact design in this way. Very interesting video!!
3:26 In India, we have similar apps (UPI apps for payments) that also offer chat features, although this functionality is not widely used and people prefer WhatsApp to chat.
❤👍👍👍👍👍🔥🙏😍👏❤️I don’t know how I end up in this program, but I have to say-I am so pleasantly surprised in the excellence of the program. All the best to you, Yu!
Amazing work breaking down the cultural connection to the design. I experienced a similar WeChat experience to your dad in China whilst trying to buy fruit from a streetside fruit vendor. I tried purchasing with cash and they looked at me like I was crazy.
I like many of the points you make here and the way you're presenting it, but I feel like some super important aspects explaining these trends are glossed over, namely historical, political and economic differences between China and the West. Just like you emphasise the importance of culture, UX designers can also benefit from understanding the economic systems that shape the tech industries we work for.
About leapfrogging, another very important factor that's not mentioned and that needs to be taken in consideration is the ease of use of mobile phones, compared to computers. I saw this with several elder people who tried to get desktops/laptops to eventually only use them only to check their emails and holiday pictures. But when those same people got a mobile phone and/or a tablet their relation with technology completely changed. The whole experience is so much more easy!
I spent a couple of months in China and honestly, I don't think it is too hard to get used to. While it did irritate me at first, after using those few apps (Alipay, Wechat, Taobao, Meituan) for like 3 days, it wasn't even a hassle anymore, because it is just so convenient even if it is somewhat of a clutter or reminiscent of the early Internet lol With those 4 apps, you can almost assimilate seamlessly into their livelihood - well, digitally, at least. As for the pop-ups in the APPs, they are alright, especially when you compare them to those pop-ups on computer sites that asks you for your permissions and cookies, or wikipedia asking for donations. Another thing that might destroy your eyes at first, but you grow accustom to quickly is: when you watch Chinese streams, there is an option to enable on-screen comments where you will see chat comments fly by across the screen in front of the stream. It used to bother me, but eventually, you just kinda automatically grow used to it. I remember coming back to the US and not being used to having to move my eyes to the right to read a Twitch chatbox lol
It is the opposite. There are existing monopolies in each sector and they don't let the new tech startups penetrate. So there wouldn't be a one-super app.
I also don't see what's the problem with using different apps. Okay, you need to switch between the apps. What's the problem though? Is it somehow different from switching between functionalities within a superapp? Convenience doesn't seem to be the case here, as integrations between the apps can provide just the same. Taking the example from the video, the only issue I see with ordering a coffee is that mobile wallet required update. However, it's a problem with the wallet app that doesn't let you to use it without immediate update. I often see apps handle it well lately.
This is so insightful! I'm a designer, learning UX design and have noticed something similar in India, our e-commerce apps like Amazon and Flipkart also have very saturated screens, I wonder if they adopted that with this mentality? Fascinating!
In some ways, I feel like Chinese app design is better. I'm American, and one reason I hate using my smartphone is because you can't see much information at once, there's a lot of wasted space, and you have to switch between a ton of apps to get anything done. Everything feels sloppy and disjointed. Most Americans like lots of white space and only being able to see and do a few things at once, whereas I kind of miss the way it was on the early Internet, when web pages were jam-packed with info and you could see everything at a glance. I noticed a few websites in other countries still have that old design philosophy in some ways, and Chinese app design seems a lot like what I grew up with in the 1990s, but done on mobile rather than desktop. In the early days of the Internet, it seemed like there was going to be more integration and more ability to display a lot of information at a glance, but as the original "nerd" type people who built the systems became a minority, the average American using an iPhone pushed design in the direction of being really full of white space and only be able to do and see a few things at once. I wonder what it means that I prefer the way Japanese websites and Chinese apps are, even though I'm American? Is it related to IQ, is it that I am somehow maladapted to my own culture? Weird to think about for sure. The American designs to me look dumbed down and artsy, not functional or informative. Like they're designed to waste your time and limit what you can do, while making you feel like you're getting more than you are... the American apps and "modern" web design have always felt to me like a big bag of potato chips that's less than half full, if that makes sense. To give you an idea of how much this type of person I am that only a very nerdy audience would get... I'm the type of person that loves Emacs and uses a fork of classic Firefox to keep using a ton of old XUL extensions.
There’s nothing collectivist about cross-industry monopolies (edit to clarify: they add value to neither the community nor the individual). Western countries have distributed economies and antitrust laws to prevent these apps forming. I don’t think it would fly here to allow one company to have dominating control over every aspect of constituents’ lives. It’s already problematic when your Uber account is deactivated. These apps thrive in authoritarian or planned economies. It’s true that it’s more effort for the consumer to have multiple apps, but it is something that Phone OEMs can design around and the home screen exists for a reason and it already looks like these apps for a reason. Standards exist for the interchange of data between these apps and the services that use them will eventually win. It’s true that phone OEMs have too much control over users but that’s why there is so much legal action between governments, OEMs and social networks. I also hate the UX of QR-codes-to-pay. I can see the appeal if you don’t want to participate in international banking standards, but at least use NFC or something secure and more reliable.
Eh, I have lived in the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, South Korea and China. I quite like the all in one ( wechat in China, Kakao in South Korea), it just works super well with the way my brain works. I like how well things are integrated. In the Netherlands everything has an app...but things are so disjointed and messy compared to the asian all in one that I just do not bother. I hate it whenever I am forced to use the app version of some Dutch company. Their UX design suuuucks. And they get away with it because these damn companies feel barely any pressure to improve because they are oligarchs who do not compete with each other in practice only on paper, their only goal is to lock you into their crappy ecossytem, so they all suck. Meanwhile in Asia, integration has to be good with the super app because otherwise people just switch to the more convenient option in the same app. these super apps they are basically like a mini OS whereby other companies offer services within the app. But the mindset is also different here in asia: convenience& integration rather than capture & lock in.
If every app has everything in a super app, then nobody has an actual monopoly of it. The irony of your comment is that the western set up is actually the one encouraging more monopoly. Using your example with Uber. You can only request an Uber via Uber app while in my experience in China, you can request a ride service in several apps, you can even request official taxi services in many apps and even in the official ride sharing app you can choose between an official taxi or a regular driver. I have experienced more challenges in "choosing" in the western market than in the asian market. I was banned from Paypal long ago without any clear reason and tried to contact them and they just kept repeating a letter like a robot. At that time, there were not many paying options from my country, so I ended giving up on my purchase. So I don't buy that bs argument that western environment is less monopolistic. I lived in China for 2 years and the actual challenge was being overwhelmed with options when doing online shopping, i.e. While here, most of the market is heavily influenced by Amazon, which ironically failed in China, since couls not keep with so many competition and low prices, while here they can charge higher delivery prices.
Personally I think it's more about those huge companies trying to be monopolies (and succeeding in some cases). Keeping the user locked into a single app means less chances for the user to go to a competitor
It’s more of a business strategy than a UX design. Separating different features into different apps was Google’s idea some years ago. They implemented that standard into Android system’s guideline. Apps on iOS also followed the same principle later. For users, feature aggregation to certain extent has its usefulness. According to a study, mobile users actively dislike to install too many apps. Chinese apps abuse this principle to extreme, while western apps do the opposite. I think the best peak is somewhere between these two trends. ❤
(western) ux designer here! one of the primary goals when observing users is to figure out what their mental mappings are, and what they intuitively want to accomplish. because if you can reduce cognitive load you improve a user’s experience. i can’t say for certain that ux designers in china/japan also try to reduce cognitive load, but it would certainly raise my eyebrows if they didn’t. that’s the whole idea behind the “less is more” saying, less features means less scanning and thinking about a task you want to accomplish. so from that end i’d be super curious to know what the methodology ux designers in china/japan utilize to reduce cognitive load without reducing features!
The Wall Street journal example felt really silly, you opened four different apps? You essentially opened four different apps inside of the we chat app too, so you could frame that as 5 different apps. Not being able to use the built in multitasking features of the operating system is a hindrance in those apps. Interesting video, but I think it glosses over some very important context that was missed in lieu of focusing on the cultures. I will preface this by saying I am generally pro-china, but the reason those apps are so popular is because that it allows the companies, to gather analytics more effectively. I wouldn’t argue that the US doesn’t do this either, but their ability to do so is enabled by Apple (or Google) while the Chinese are hindered by those US companies. The Chinese companies are able to circumvent this and gain better analytics on their users by forcing them into an ecosystem that allows for complete surveillance across all of their products. It’s much easier to get someone to download 1 super app than 6 different separate apps all competing for the same user base. Whether this is any more or less malevolent than when US companies do it isn’t something I really care about, but it is the WHY behind the HOW (the user interface) that I think is worth exploring. The same effect can be achieved with a western style ui, so it does beg the question of why super apps, not why super apps look the way they do.
I had the same question when I moved to China 2 years ago. This video is the most comprehensive answer I got so far. 谢谢Phoebe! But I am a tech nerd, so through my perspective I though that as Chinese companies do not control the phone/pc operating systems like Apple and Microsoft do, they just want to control more of user experience through the instruments that they already have (apps). Thats how we ended up the superapps, a way to build better UX for those, who do not control OS. Because most of the cross-integration you're talking about google/apple is achieving without cluttering a single app as much.
As a more true to live example, apple have a universal QR scanner widget, that can scan anything. And it would be even more convenient for user, if companies like Alibaba or Tencent allowed their QR codes to be scanned through this universal scanner. But they explicitly don't. Because they want you to use their's, not Apple's, even if it would be more convenient for the end user.
Also, from a technical standpoint, the engine of these "superapps" is just a modified web browser. So this is the case, when I'd rather open a menu of the restaurant in a safari and pay with applepay, rather than seeing a bunch of meituan advertisements before I get to the page of order where it will make me share my phone. Or better, native apps present in the western countries, are ALWAYS better optimized and working faster than webapps like in wechat. So I really don't understand what's wrong with switching between apps. You do the same thing inside wechat anyway.
I'm from nyc and not Chinese, these last two videos have been extremely helpful even in just highlighting what the different trends are, not to mention then your evaluation of why they're good/bad. thank you!
I used to prefer western UI designs as they are much cleaner. However, it is actually not a problem of Chinese Apps that seem to be too “clutter.” As all of these apps have good internal search engines, it is not an issue any more. And it is also about the purpose of the App. For example, Apps like WeChat Reading or Tencent Music, have clean UIs. And it is not only about design or culture, most of these UIs are the result of intensive A/B test. The designs lead to better business targets will survive.
As a full stack dev lead, we not only have to consider the young group, but the senior group is much harder to handle. Give them straight sign or button to click, is the best way.
I looked at two apps while watching this video, the Amtrak app and the Chicago Ventra app. They both have cluttered home screens, but the Ventra one feels more useful whereas the Amtrak app I immediately navigate away from it. I get the sense that if US companies started giving us more information on screen, they’d just clutter it with crap. And not crap as in stuff, just garbage. Even with Clipper in San Francisco, I don’t use the app. I just add cash on Apple wallet since it’s easier to navigate. Also, the Chinese super apps did evolve and there is only so much you can add without having to do a whole redesign.
The UA-camr, Answer In Progress, in her video titled "why Japan's internet is weirdly designed" covers some aspects of this when she compared Japanese websites to Western ones. It's worth a look.
I do like the idea of the apps working in tandem with one another and the visual style is reminiscent of the old web. The combo meal analogy is also very good. If implemented with productivity in mind, the 'clutter' can become 'information dense'.
I don't think many people see Bruce Lee as an artist. They see him as a fighter, because that's what he did. He fought, with martial arts. He would be near the bottom of the barrel of choices for artists.
4:03 i am out at this point. The number of apps used is irrelevant. You have to recognise the different processes anyway. The whole idea of super apps is just about control. If my app does everything, it will be easier to control more human behaviour. A good video tho
on a related note, the damage google has done to design in the USA is horrendous, information density is yet to recover to the levels of the early 2000s and its depressing
Here in Thailand, we kinda get the worst of both worlds. Our ecommerce apps are incredibly cluttered but still have to open multiple apps (i.e. banking apps for payment)
I really appreciate the simplicity of the video. It would be better if there was no background music. Keep making these informative videos. Best wishes for you.
After watching this I still don't understand how cleaner, more efficient UI would hurt those "super apps".. Having ads under every single icon in Taobao doesn't make it more useful. Blame me for oversimplifying this matter, but I think it's purely a question of competition. If the state didn't let monopolists flourish, Chinese customers would have way more choice in terms from those alternative apps, we would see a shift in bigger platform UIs. Plus, I don't see how people would prefer aggressive marketing, like constant pop-ups, click bait icons etc. over those apps which respect your time and attention span.
I just love this channel. The combination of Design and psychology. Even though there are other channels like this, this one is super interesting and well explained in a funny way.
I understand why some people still don't get it, that proves the point of the cultural differences. In Interior Design for example, some prefer minimal, others prefer cozy. It's a matter of perception. A royal palace with lots of antiques, paintings, rugs and patterned wallpapers might be beautiful, but overwhelming for others. Cluttered Designs are just a bad user experience for some users, no matter how the UI is refined, even though using different menus will still make it overwhelming for them. Simple Designs are just "incomplete" for other users, which means a bad user experience as they perceive it.
This video ended up being so much more interesting that I imagined going in. The comparison between the level of information on the street of the US and China really made it click.
I'm a UX from Brazil, south America, and this approach to facilitate and have the "happy meal" on a supper app it would make a lot of sense, for elders or accessibility here. We consume a lot of Western design, which is very exclusive and we have many problems such as illiteracy, digital or otherwise. Thank you for the content 😸
Keep up the outstanding work! As a business owner and developer, this information is key to develop great experiences for all kinds of users. Your video on Japan was great and this one is too! Looking forward to your next upload.
I'm Indonesian and i have such super-app really similiar to the "typical chinese UI" in this video. I hate it, it's so slow and there's at least 1 second delay whenever i click something. On top of that, there are some pop up ads whenever i open it for the first time and some other smaller ad annoyingly blinking in the corner. Everything about that app makes me want to force-close it as fast as i can.
As a Chinese, I deeply hate this over-designed UI/UX trend in China. Many of those fancy colorful widgets and buttons are actually slowing down my poor phone (not to mention the disgusting shakey ADs). More importantly, most of those functions are not part of the core app! Imagine you can complete lending services in almost any application, even in Chinese Uber! These buttons are actually like many micro clickbaits hoping to attract your precious attention. SIn this case, every app in my phone take up more than 3-4 Gb of storage even if I barely use them, and WeChat app is actually can be over 50-100 Gb in someone's phone! So I changed my phone language in to English for a purer experience and less-noisy UI.
Yea this is also one disadvantage of a monopolized app market structure, where the market leader is trying to pull everyone , but in some sense creates trash for another individual. This can create a notion where more is less 🤷♂😁
And what happens when you run out of battery or you lose your phone? You literally cannot find your way home.
Yeah, I’ve tried some apps that try the combo experience, like Outlook Mail+Calendar, Snapchat Messaging+Tiktok Clone, YT Shorts+Long form+music player, etc, and they all do one thing well at most. I like having a single inbox for email, but my university email (outlook exchange) has next to zero compatibility and blocks every client. Outlook Mail lacks a proper refresh button, most TikTok clones dilute and clutter the experience of an app while adding very very little value (I’ve never seen a Snapchat story highlight promoted that isn’t spam or awful, although the Snap Map is nice). Facebook is terrible for trying to see actual content (no moderation and lots of AI), but it has a nice system for buy sell groups.
Like, maybe Chinese companies just QA test their apps a lot more than western companies, but whenever I see an app that does more than one thing, it usually still only does one thing well. If anything, the lack of tactility is more of an annoyance to me than having to switch apps (especially since iOS rarely allows multi instancing apps, a super app would probably be hard to multitask with) (although I acknowledge that it could be different for a online culture more used to smartphones over PCs). I think if I wanted a super app like combo experience, I’d rather just be able to install mods or plugins to add those features.
Edit: I hate overly minimalist designs too ofc, since they require a lot more to navigate. My ideal is probably just being able to hide superfluous icons, but also having everything laid out accessibly
Indeed. Especially when phone prices rack up when you get one with larger storage size, this would be quite unideal. Any ideas for how to workaround this?
@@phoebeyutbti’ve been thinking about this, but besides designing English-like UI, or cloud services, i’m out of solutions.
All in one app? Sounds like an operating system.
Emacs mentioned????
nah, can't be, an app acts like an os and is mistaken to be an app?! /s
Interesting.. Plz elaborate!
'Cos it is a de facto OS. All the various functionalities (save chat, payment and insta-like videos and posts) come from installing the so-called mini-apps, which instead of being installed on Android from the Play store or the Baidu store, they are installed from the Wechat store that sits within the Wechat app. It's like the Java Runtime Environment, but on steroids.
@@phoebeyutbt Operating systems are essentially the original "super apps." They allow integration of various features and applications (payments, messaging, and shopping). When someone claims that an all-in-one app is a novel concept, we long had this functionality in the form of OS.
when apps become the OS. instead of opening 2 apps they just open 3 screens in one app
I like this.
Except the integration between these pages is seamless
That because 3rd party app developer doesn't bother to integrate, not an OS limitations. If you want to see seamless interapp integration. Look at suit of apps from Google and Samsung. They are also more lightweight, request appropriate permissions, can be optionally installed, provide proper support for split screen multitasking, searchable in your app drawer,...
@@yuitachibana8829 that's not true
@yuitachibana8829 I would love to have seamless Integration on Android, but this is not the case
Sounds like all of those super apps try to become a monopoly with its ecosystem
That's how it generally is everywhere.
No, they became a monopoly first and started to deprioritize user experience.
That's what Facebook has been trying to do for ages. They tried to become Amazon, Tiktok, UA-cam all in one but ultimately failed. Only China the concept of super app works
Also great for the govt, as they just need to siphon data from one provider, thus allowing even more efficient surveillance!
But solve the problem of android, its hard to communicate between apps for security reasons, if everything is in the same app is slightly more secure
I don't think most chinese ux design is cluttered on purpose, I think when you design an app with one function, and then add more features later on, it forces the app to become cluttered, as opposed to designing a multipurpose app from the beginining. Chinese consumers are very aware of good design, and chinese companies like DJI, Xiaomi, understand design. Their cars, user interfaces, home appliances all have good clean, minimilist design. Chinese brains are no different to Western brains, or any other human brain, they have just become accustomed to clutter. But good design defintely exists in China, from Architecture to enviornment design to Ui's. the real question is...how would YOU design a multipurpose app that doesn't look cluttered. It takes a lot of effort and brain power. it's much easier to just cram something on, then build from the ground up.
Realistically, multi billion corporations have enough resources to make good design - they just don't. Expansion, profit, new features > comfortable user experience.
Well, here comes the AI
I couldn’t agree more. This video’s explanation is unsatisfying
And any such design will need to be adaptive to a constant 4-week update cycle without falling back into a cluttered mess.
This is a trashy post upvoted because of cultural bias.
“Good” design is opinion.
Culture influences people’s brains and perception so to say their brains are the same is silly.
To say that certain products “understand design”, just because they conform to your standards and desires of design shows some lack of awareness of one’s own preferences.
its quite a similar situation here in Indonesia. I notice that a lot of homegrown apps somewhat lean more into a ux philosophy similar to Chinese app design, where all apps are multi-purpose, ex. gojek, tokopedia, dana; but still implement quite a western approach with ui, something more clean and somewhat minimal. I find people here tend to have the expectation that they should be able to do a lot of things with the same app, but also want it to be a more clean user interface.
Interesting! Seems like there are lots of similarities between East and Southeast Asian countries. Thanks for sharing.
shopee and dana are sooo influenced by chinese apps. shopee looks straight up like a chinese e-commerce, down to their 7-days return policy that they’ve implemented lately. and shopee works really well here
@@bels4840 Yup, and that's one thing I dislike about Shopee's app and website design tbh. It feels unnecessarily cluttered, especially with the pop-up video when I go into the product page. Some buttons are small for no reason like the Favourite button, and at times it can be unclear which text is a button and which is only text.
Same in the Philippines. Grab is a super app in SEA. We can book a cab, order food, and pay with QR. Although we use a different mobile wallet like GCash or Maya, so it still kind of uses a Western approach in UI.
Exactly! 😂 Multipurpose function in apps that doesn't need to really confuse me. Kayak, fitur live ngapain sih bisa ada di marketplace serius sumpeh akwkwkw
I really like the Chinese map application where you can discuss the traffic jam with other people who are also in the same traffic jam😂
I liked the video, but I disagree with the statement that cluttered UIs mean more info. You can have a lot of info with an uncluttered design. And I think that uncluttered UI/UXs ultimately help the users find/do what they want. You can have super-apps with clean designs, here again one doesn’t mean the other. Look at Uber, they have car riding, scooters, food delivery, car rental in a pretty clean app.
In the context of a super app, it is more information whether you like it or not.
Where I live all those Uber functions are in separate unrelated apps.
I've never seen a Uber super app.
more "info" yes. But how much of it is signal?
You clearly didn't understand what you watched.
These apps provide a ton of useful information and functionality in a single screen. You can't do that in an simple, uncluttered design because there is not enough space.
As a westerner I personally don't like these types of designs. They are like visual noise that I can't wait to get away from. To me, one app or company that handles everything in such a manner is monopolistic and stifles potential competition. Additionally, whenever I see design like that my brain immediately registers it as tacky and scammy. For me, less is more.
It us because you as westerner can’t handle complex concepts on one
@@Rusu421 Bold of you to assume something about someone you've never met.
Cope ccp ahaha bot @@Rusu421
I like it personally, only if the icons were flat and slightly bigger.
@@InfiniteScrollMachine you are random account in the Net. Nice to meet you.
I feel like you completely fail to talk about it from the actual development side of things. You make it sound like the people using it chose this kind of software, but I don’t think you really have a choice but to use the apps because so much of your life depends on it. So if a couple apps have a monopoly it’s way less incentive to compete in niches and really optimize a certain experience. The apps look this way because of the power structures within the company, the amount of control they give to designers, UX people etc. there’s something called Conways law that states that the structure of a product is defined by the structure of the people working on it. I think it would be way more interesting to see what development culture leads to this kind of design. Also I feel like you missed how bloated these apps truly are, they take gigabytes and gigabytes, everything tries to do everything and usually not even particularly well. There’s so much duplication of features and so many ways to get scammed or make mistakes. It’s a ridiculously unstructured ecosystem
Hi MegaMaster, thank you for your feedback. You’ve got a fair point on development. While I take a design and psychology approach to these analyses, it’ll be hard to dismiss how culture of companies themselves + business incentives may influence design. Any resources you’d recommend to start reading into this?
@@phoebeyutbt I mentioned it in my original comment, but I think one thing that definitely is very important to understand why some things are how they are is conways law. Here's a very interesting video going into what exactly it means ua-cam.com/video/5IUj1EZwpJY/v-deo.html He's trying to give as much context as possible, it's really worth the watch, even if you're not interested in software at all. especially the examples he gives about the 5 different windows UI volume controls is very interesting. Basically the end result the user sees is defined by the teams that worked on the app itself. these socalled super Apps are iiiincredibly hard to design and incredibly complex, so you need to somehow divide it into teams, and these teams need to communicate with each other. If the communication is effective you will see an end result that is effective and somewhat mirrors the way the teams are. But if you take into account how collectivistic cultures work, taking individual responsibility, the importance of workplace ettiquette, how easy it is to follow the status quo, how strongly throwing stuff away is penalised, how managers are incentivised, etc etc. then you begin to see half the picture. the other half is even worse communication between teams, if you consider that these super apps have entire companies that create mini apps inside the main app. there's virtually no communication or coordination between the main superapp teams and the mini app team, and especially no communication between different mini app teams. This is not even specific to chinese apps, but applies to any ecosystem, windows is an incredibly good example of how fragmented and convoluted these things can get. The way you can visualise this easily is "okay what if we unified the design and programming of it?" let's say WeChat spends a billion dollars on making the entire app minimalistic and reworking everything from the ground up with a really good scientifically proven, amazing UX and UI, super clean, while still having that classic Chinese flair without being too complicated for new users or elderly people. You would still regularly see very incoherent and incompatible things, just because WeChat can only update their own codebases and designs, while they have so many different delivery apps, and small micro services that are handled by completely other companies. Anyways, hope this helps.
@@megamaster7667 very good comment, i liked that video as well
@@phoebeyutbt Very smart tai chi, turning criticism into a learning opportunity, you are one smart girl.
@@phoebeyutbt If you want to know more about the rise of Chinese tech and the tech landscape in China check out AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order Hardcover by Kai-Fu Lee. Obviously the focus is on AI, but he does a good job of explaining the Chinese tech landscape and mentality compared to Silicon Valley.
As an introvert just by looking at those screenshots my social battery was drained
agreed! INTP
It's not an introvert thing lol, a lot of introverts like complexity.
Also this introvert concept needs to be deleted, it groups very different people in one category
Dense - Simple, which one?
The introvert label ONLY implies social discomfort, it means nothing else, stop categorizing every aspect.
Funny thing is that many western apps in the late 90s and early 2000s also had cluttered designs. I think at some point we accepted minimalism as being modern.
Actually, there are four significant reasons overlooked by this focus on culture - genuine underlying legal, administrative, and political causes for a lack of “super-apps” outside of China:
1. Antitrust & competition laws in developed nations prevent monopolies like WeChat from forming.
2. IP laws protect innovation by new apps from being copied by larger competitors and amalgamated into their own “super-apps” like WeChat.
3. Data protection laws protect consumers’ information from being circulated between multiple platforms within a “super-app”, and to outside third parties.
4. The lack of a truly free market in China strongly distorted historical app development, with “super-apps” more the result of specific centralized decision making, rather than the result of genuinely collective popular choices. Political will from the central government has had a stronger impact than allowed for in this video (e.g., internet blocking, no data privacy, censorship, etc.)
The last of these points is clearly demonstrated by the lack of “super-apps” in every other collectivist Asian culture, from Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong to Vietnam, Japan, and Singapore (all of which use non-Chinese apps).
To be honest, I watched the video and I still don’t get the decision behind very bad UI design. Super app doesn’t have to equal bad design. You can have a super app with good design, good UX and high context, without having ugly pixilated icons …
You might not fully understand it because you’re overlooking the cultural factor. From the perspective of people-in this case, from China-we need to understand their social context, needs, customs, and history. The girl keeps reminding us: culture is a programming.
For us, it might look ugly because we’re familiar with other UIs, we have different needs, habits, and culture.
What seems ugly and like bad UX to us is, for them, what works and meets their needs (also considering that there may be a stronger business bias than in the West).
As a UI/UX designer, it’s important to research and study. What works here won’t work everywhere.
I agree. Interesting question, but the answer was on a very simple level - because of culture. Lol, thats not even an answer.
Look at ancient chinese art, dynamic composition, lots of white space, while european art at the same time was like let's clutter everything symmetrically along the central axis. Look at Chinese porcelain, everything is cluttered, but the composition and visual aesthetics are stunning.
Urbanization and increasing density only started in the late 20th century, its too early to talk about how it affected culture.
The first chinese printed books (scrolls) look finer than modern chinese apps (overall layout and aesthetics) and have more connection to international/swiss style.
because she didn't really explain it. If she is truly explaining cultural differences, she should've compared multiple apps from Eastern vs Western culture. China is by no means an island on its own (unless you're perceiving it from a political standpoint). If you're making an argument distinguishing app UI/UX from a collective society versus individualist society, there are plenty of examples (i.e., India, S Korea, Japan, etc) to draw parallels. But it feels more like she using a priori reasoning to draw her conclusions.
The way I see it, without doing any research, is that when a company like WeChat dominates the market (holding monopoly), then it can throw in ads and all sorts of junks and users don't really have a choice but to accept it as is. Whereas in US, if PayPal's design turns off users, they can go to Revolut, CashApp, Venmo, and on and on. So in this competitive environments, you have to be keenly aware of the users' experience. Not so much when you are the dominate (only) player in the market and throw in whatever icon you want
@@TerranceYuI agree with you. Unfortunately, she doesn't really go into the differences in the video, but merely gives cultural differences as a pretext. Another reason why there are only SuperApps in countries like China is that the politically desired absence of the big American tech companies has created a vacuum that could be filled by local pre monopolists. This also explains well enough why SuperApps will always fail here, apart from the fact that these monopoly constructions would be prohibited everywhere. This space is already filled by Google und Co.
One more thing occurred to me. In terms of data protection, it must be a nightmare for users of a SuperApp to have everything they do there tracked by a provider. But here we are not much different from the operators of the SuperApps, as Meta, Google & Co. actually track us everywhere.
Simply put: a large number of Chinese users, even most of them, do not care about aesthetics, which is also why Pinduoduo, the parent company of Temu is extremely popular in China by being ridiculous cheap with even shittier app design.
Many of the national-wide apps in China now add "elderly mode" / "lite mode", which uses very large fonts and icons hence the content becomes super concise. The intention was making the app more accessible by those elderly who are unfamiliar with smart phones and have trouble reading small texts on the screens. Some of the apps also allow the customization for users to pick the functions that they want to be placed on the home screen of the app given the limited space. As far as I know, in addition to the elderly, a certain amount of young people (including me) are are switching to this mode as well.
High context cultures prioritise nuanced communication so a cluttered design makes sense? I don’t understand how the two factors relate to each other.
Right, intuitively one would think a more nuanced communication style corresponds to minimalist UI. But perhaps this intuition is wrong?
I think nuance in this context means more details. I think of it like when you see product comparison charts that give you a summary then the option for more details. Here it would be that they would prefer seeing the chart with more details first.
More information means more potential cluttering. I think it’s a matter of will to clean up the clutter. I mean, you can have lots of information without cluttering it as much.
I just graduated as an UX designer in Europe, and Asian design was never mentioned. i consume a lot of Asian media and I had to fight back the learnings at school because I was looking at designs that went against the things they teach us while still being successful. A big miss there.
An app being 'successful' (user adoption, user spending, user retention, etc) does not mean it therefor offers 'good' UX. Asian UX design is effective, Western UX design is efficient.
I'm hoping we do not import these Chinese design trends....
@@mightylotan If Elon gets his way with X, it would be the first Western "super app". We'll see though 🤷♂️
@@mightylotan It is no abut adopting them, but being able to design for different target groups regardless of their location.
i was taught about east asian interface designs briefly, but more so in the context that you should always design for a specific type of user because their expectations and understanding can be wildly different depending on factors like culture, identity, and circumstance.
unless you specifically design for east asian markets i don’t think it’s a particularly necessary wealth of knowledge you need to access.
in fact i was never taught shit about right to left interfaces like those with arabic copy. but there’s no insight i could glean from that unless i was explicitly designing for middle eastern markets
I love this. I'm a developer who is studying ux design and I never thought to design and build with culture in mind. Excellent video.
Thank you Bria!!
This is such an interesting topic. I’m a software engineer but I’ve always found UX design interesting. It reminds me how UI in video games made by Japanese studios also look very different from western designs.
I think japan case is much different....
But I like the paper the video based on. Thxs for sharing...
And thxs for making a video 😊❤
An all in one app is way better at harvesting user data than a single app with a single function
This is true, because customers are more willing to exchange their personal info for more convenience after they have done it once on that very app. Just look at the difference between original Facebook and the Facebook of now with Marketplace, Instagram, and all the other websites and apps that offer easy registrations with Facebook.
and censoring user
when you said it works bec people using it is a flawed argument.
To simplify, western apps are separated because "there's an app for that" was our introduction to apps as a mindset and monopolies are generally frowned upon and competition is seen as a positive thing. If one app does something better than another we use that instead or use both (in the cases of lyft and uber checking for which has the best priced ride). People may use websites like Kayak or something to check prices of flights across many providers, but if you buy a ticket through them and something bad happens, the customer service is a middleman instead of the main provider.
This is really true, an all-in-one app sounds very scary.
@@user-yk7mn7we2i because it is scary. What happens when the one-true-app locks your account? You''ll be locked out of everything that app does. All your eggs in THEIR basket (not your basket). And they can lock you out on a whim.
the biggest irony is that in a “free market” capitalist system like in the west, monopolies eventually dominate over everything and there won’t be many alternatives. in china there’s these multipurpose apps but also more alternatives
@@chrissy4957 idk if there are as many alternatives in China on even a few fields I can find:
1. Food Delivery
Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, Seamless, Deliveroo, Just Eat, Caviar, ChowNow, EatStreet, GoPuff, Bite Squad, Waitr, Munchery, Wolt
2. Music Streaming
Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, UA-cam Music, Tidal, Pandora, SoundCloud, Napster, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Shazam, Bandcamp, Musicolet, SoundHound, SiriusXM
3. Video Streaming
Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, UA-cam Premium, Peacock, Paramount+, Sling TV, fuboTV, Vudu, Tubi, Pluto TV, ESPN+, CBS All Access, Showtime, STARZ, Acorn TV, BritBox, Philo, Shudder, Mubi, Kanopy, Criterion Channel, Discovery+
4. Ride-Hailing/Transportation
Uber, Lyft, Curb, Via, Gett, Wingz, Zipcar, Turo, Maven, Lime, Bird, Spin, Revel, Scoot, Jump (now Lime), Helbiz
5. E-commerce/Online Shopping
Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, Newegg, Overstock, Zappos, Best Buy, Target, BigCommerce, Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, Bonanza, Poshmark, Depop, OfferUp, StockX, GoPuff, Instacart
6. Social Media
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X), Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Quora, Clubhouse, Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Discord, Parler, MeWe, Gab, Mastodon, Triller, Byte, Kik, Houseparty, Vero, Minds, Rumble
7. Online Education/Elearning
Coursera, Udemy, edX, Khan Academy, LinkedIn Learning, Skillshare, MasterClass, Udacity, Pluralsight, Codecademy, Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, Brilliant, Treehouse, Simplilearn, Lynda (now LinkedIn Learning), Teachable, Podia, Kajabi, GoSkills, ABCmouse, BrainPOP, Edmodo, Saylor Academy
8. Productivity/Collaboration Tools
Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Notion, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Todoist, ClickUp, Wrike, Airtable, Miro, Coda, Smartsheet, Quip, Freedcamp, MeisterTask, nTask, Scoro, Paymo, Workzone, Chanty, Flock, Ryver
9. Cloud Storage
Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud, Amazon Drive, Box, Backblaze, IDrive, SpiderOak, SugarSync, MediaFire, Zoolz, Livedrive, Egnyte, Citrix ShareFile, ElephantDrive, Syncplicity, Wasabi, ExaVault, FileCloud, IceDrive, NordLocker
10. Health & Fitness
MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, Nike Training Club, Google Fit, Apple Health, Strava, Peloton, Calm, Headspace, 7 Minute Workout, Lose It!, Lifesum, Map My Run, Runkeeper, Sworkit, Fitbod, JEFIT, Daily Yoga, FitOn, Aaptiv, Asana Rebel, Fitplan, 8fit, MyPlate, StrongLifts 5x5, Zombies, Run!, RunGo, Charity Miles, Centr, Sweat.
Do you still think there are less alternatives and competitions going on in America (or any other countries with a capitalist system)?
@@chrissy4957 idk if there are as many alternatives in China on even a few fields I can find:
1. Food Delivery
Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, Seamless, Deliveroo, Just Eat, Caviar, ChowNow, EatStreet, GoPuff, Bite Squad, Waitr, Munchery, Wolt
2. Music Streaming
Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, UA-cam Music, Tidal, Pandora, SoundCloud, Napster, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Shazam, Bandcamp, Musicolet, SoundHound, SiriusXM
3. Video Streaming
Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, UA-cam Premium, Peacock, Paramount+, Sling TV, fuboTV, Vudu, Tubi, Pluto TV, ESPN+, CBS All Access, Showtime, STARZ, Acorn TV, BritBox, Philo, Shudder, Mubi, Kanopy, Criterion Channel, Discovery+
4. Ride-Hailing/Transportation
Uber, Lyft, Curb, Via, Gett, Wingz, Zipcar, Turo, Maven, Lime, Bird, Spin, Revel, Scoot, Jump (now Lime), Helbiz
5. E-commerce/Online Shopping
Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, Newegg, Overstock, Zappos, Best Buy, Target, BigCommerce, Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, Bonanza, Poshmark, Depop, OfferUp, StockX, GoPuff, Instacart
6. Social Media
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X), Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Quora, Clubhouse, Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Discord, Parler, MeWe, Gab, Mastodon, Triller, Byte, Kik, Houseparty, Vero, Minds, Rumble
7. Online Education/Elearning
Coursera, Udemy, edX, Khan Academy, LinkedIn Learning, Skillshare, MasterClass, Udacity, Pluralsight, Codecademy, Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, Brilliant, Treehouse, Simplilearn, Lynda (now LinkedIn Learning), Teachable, Podia, Kajabi, GoSkills, ABCmouse, BrainPOP, Edmodo, Saylor Academy
8. Productivity/Collaboration Tools
Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Notion, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Todoist, ClickUp, Wrike, Airtable, Miro, Coda, Smartsheet, Quip, Freedcamp, MeisterTask, nTask, Scoro, Paymo, Workzone, Chanty, Flock, Ryver
9. Cloud Storage
Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud, Amazon Drive, Box, Backblaze, IDrive, SpiderOak, SugarSync, MediaFire, Zoolz, Livedrive, Egnyte, Citrix ShareFile, ElephantDrive, Syncplicity, Wasabi, ExaVault, FileCloud, IceDrive, NordLocker
10. Health & Fitness
MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, Nike Training Club, Google Fit, Apple Health, Strava, Peloton, Calm, Headspace, 7 Minute Workout, Lose It!, Lifesum, Map My Run, Runkeeper, Sworkit, Fitbod, JEFIT, Daily Yoga, FitOn, Aaptiv, Asana Rebel, Fitplan, 8fit, MyPlate, StrongLifts 5x5, Zombies, Run!, RunGo, Charity Miles, Centr, Sweat.
Do you still think there are less alternatives and competitions going on in America (or any other countries with a capitalist system)?
This comparison is only halfway there. If you realize that the super-apps are basically a package of apps in their own ecosystems, you should be comparing their UI to a system of similar level: the OS.
You wouldn't be comparing the super-app's main menu to a western app main menu; you should be comparing it to the desktop/home-screen menu of the phone. Your phone's home screen is usually filled with app icons, one for each feature you use your phone fore, just as much as the super-app is filled with icons for each feature.
So you should compare the super-app main menu to your home screen, while comparing a western app main menu to a sub-menu of the super-app.
It's an interesting take, but I feel this analysis is missing a few key points:
* Super Apps exist in China in the void created by the ban of the Google App Play Store. These apps are kind of creating their own "Android on top of Android".
* Are alternatives to super apps really available in China? If "dense & feature rich & mono-app" has no competition vs the western "minimalist & simple & multi-app", it's hard to tell if users actually prefer this option. They might be using it simply because it beats what came before (ex: cash, wire transfers, Debit Cards or simply nothing).
The mobile leapfrogging not only because it's cheaper, but also for a very important reason: it's more user-friendly for most people, especially older people and those without much education. Using a computer requires at least some basic knowledge, unlike the mobile platform which is based on intuition.
Having used Google Maps vs Naver Maps (South Korea) and GaoDe Maps 高德地图 (China), I find Google Maps lacking in features. I don't mind steep learning curves for apps that are used daily. Even as a tourist spending a week or two in SK and China, I got used to their interface pretty quickly and missed them when I'm back to using Google Maps in my home country.
Features like:
-Traffic light turning green in XX seconds
-Exact lanes to use (with road visualisation)
-Metro costs and schedules
-Metro quick entry and exit (Google Maps has this in some countries but they are much inferior)
Thanks for creating these videos! I am really passionate in UI/UX design and your videos give good perspectives on how different countries behave.
I was searched how the traffic lights noticing feature implemented. It needs to install 5G module on the traffic lights and the navigation app can communicate with the traffic lights to get countdowns. Needs heavy investment on infrastructure. China use this not just for traffic light notice but preparing for full automatic driving.
Most likely, the SK map is powered by google becoz they do not have their own GPS system
Naver Maps really is something different. Used it while visiting SK for a week, was amazed by how seamless & convenient was the integration for the Metro.
It seems like you might not fully understand how Google Maps works. The app doesn’t lack features; rather, it’s about how well it connects with local systems. You mentioned that in China, the Naver map app shows real-time changes in traffic lights. This is possible because the app is directly integrated with the local traffic department, making it easier to implement such features. Google, on the other hand, is available in almost every country, unlike Naver, which is specifically built for SK and and some others same as china. While Google could technically implement similar features, they face challenges due to varying infrastructure levels across different countries. Google aims to provide a consistent experience globally, and some countries might lack the infrastructure needed to support these advanced features.
@DesiChichA-jq8hx What? Bottom line is still lack features
There is another theory for “all-in-one” something. Another name for it is “vertical integration” meaning merging different business process steps together, in one company or app. As opposed to to having different (specialized) companies or apps for each step. Vertical integration usually happens when outer infrastructure works poorly and turns out that a company cannot expect that outside services will work as smoothly as its own internal processes. For example, company cannot rely on external payments to work smoothly and creates its own payment system.
I don't think this explains why it "works". The /technology/ works, but as for the design, it /hurts/ the experience.
Redundant buttons and clutter make the experience worse because it's hard to quickly read and navigate.
The reason this tech is like this is probably
- internal office politics (like, Janet is dating the boss, so we can't delete this button) and
- forces of monopolies (no one's competing with us so it doesn't matter).
Edit: Anyways, I'm glad you brought this to peoples' attention. I've thought about this a lot over the years...
you just think it "clutters" the experience because you're used to western design and it's a different style of interface and school of thought. A lot of text put together may be hard to read in roman alphabets, but that's not the case for mandarin where reading recognition is a lot faster.
@@shinluis I've used both interfaces a fair amount over the years.
I don't think reading recognition is in general faster for Mandarin - do you have reasons to believe this?
Edit: just to be clear, I think the video is really cool, and I hope she makes more! Very interesting stuff! Hope I’m not coming off as a totally terrible person, hahah…
@@shinluisA lot of text putting together is also hard to be read in Chinese words.
me on the other hand hates this "minimalism" design where I need to navigate 5-6 sub menus with properties under 'buttons' that doesn't make sense to be there.
Lost are the days where I could change my password under some Settings menu or under my Profile menu.
@@jmarcos06 Good point.
Apple hides things in random menus to give the illusion of simplicity, That can hurt the experience for users who want to do use advanced functions IMO.
Chinese apps/web seem to have button redundancies growing out their ears, though... Which I think probably hurts the experience, especially for grannies and kiddos or anyone who just wants to get things done and move on with their lives.
I'm probably an advanced user, but I think it probably makes sense to prioritize grannies and kiddos.
I lived in a cluttered place myself and the last thing I want is this cluttered design on my apps too. Super app is understandable and make sense, but being a super app doesn't mean the UI needs to be cluttered as well. The e-commerce app in my country has that cluttered design as well and I ended up not even looking at it. This is psychological because it's overwhelming the brain with too much information
This look like the websites back in the early 2000s. With irrelevant ads every corner of the screen
1000%
I don’t really like this idea of letting a single entity hold onto all of your data connecting all the dots from who you chat to, to what you chat about (since encryption isn’t common in China), what you are buying, & who you are buying it thru. There is no privacy in this. I’m happy Thailand is still (at present) a cash-first society & it lets me leave the phone at home or not have the government or corporations track all of my spending. I know foreign tourists, & some of the younger generation want to do everything on their phones, but the older ones don’t (partially probably to under report income for taxes, but also distrust of the government). Personally, I also actively _try_ to keep my application usage minimal *and* separated to have no data or minimized centralized data wherever possible.
I understand this video isn’t an attempt to pass judgment to a side, but seeing this, I am scared about the folks that find this approach appealing as a sign of digital hygiene naïvety. …And I think the ‘leapfrogging’ concept has a lot to do with this as there is less understanding about how computers or the internet actually operates (not everyone can be expected to be an expert, but in the past, usually someone in your circle took on the duty of helping making smart decisions with your personal best interest in mind instead of defaulting to an app store).
This said, Thailand has it’s over-reliance on LINE which as someone without an account now has made a lot of things trickier than they ought to be. Also with all the bank apps having weird restrictions on what you can run their apps on so skipping out on those apps too, is a massive inconvenience when I _need_ to make a digital payment.
If you don't do anything wrong, you've got nothing to be scared. Truth is, the average person is a lot safer in China than in the US. Westerners are waaay too paranoid about this concept of privacy and being a secret hidden anonymous who can't be tracked down by big bad evil companies or governments. Trust me Snowden already exposed to you guys your attempts at doing so are useless and meaningless. We here in Asia don't give a crap about that fictional novelty privacy like you... We just want convenience with everyday life. Feel free to make up hassles in your own mind to worry about, haha.
I think it has its pros and cons. One thing I like about a cluttered "home" interface is, the app shows you everything that is possible right out the gate. With American-style UX, you can use a program for YEARS never knowing most of its features because they are hidden away, and it's recommended to read about everything an app can do and how to find those features in the interface.
Great insight. As a new product manager designing international platform app serving Chinese and the western world, i now noticed that I am pushing minimalism in my design too hard since I am familiar with Apple-ish design. I need to rethink culture and possibility of having 2 version of the same app.
This video opened my eyes and made me think of how ppl view things from cultural vantage point. The idea of trust & reassurance from many dependable services being available on the screen was a revelation.
This is a great video. Thank you for so thoughtfully putting it all together, hugely helpful and enjoyable
I am a Chinese. I don't find Chinese like these kinds of design. Myself hate it because it is hard to find what you want. Actually, this bad design is not just on Chinese apps. Windows OS and its applications like Word, Excel and Linux windows etc. are all bad alike. They are not Chinese applications. I don't think the design is because of Culture. It is simply a bad habit or trends. If we want to relate it to local culture, it might be related to the habit of competing the number of functionalities. this is not just Chinese, software vendors tends to compete this way.
I hate that every click of the website create a new window for that click, instead of loading the new link onto the same page, in another word, just refresh it !
We have to remember that East Asian pictorial language allows for “cluttered” UI because you can use less characters to express more meaning. The same cannot be done with latin based languages. Chinese, for example, can use four characters to express the same meaning as a full 10 or even 15 English word sentence. You can extrapolate how much more information can be shown on screen using Chinese characters than English words. Eastern Asian app design takes full advantage of this.
Edit:
We also have to consider that information processing speed is in high demand for countries with high pop density. There is no time to switch between apps when you’re trying to buy something because there is over 20 people behind you in line on a daily basis. So there is a demand to process payment as quickly as possible so the line doesn’t clog up because one person has to constantly switch apps. Thus, all of the functions get centralized into one super-app, allowing information processing speed to dramatically increase.
5:15 Sorry, that "Well" made me laugh more than I should've...
Never thought I'd be interested in this topic but here I am.
I'm from Russia (currently live in the UK), and some of the biggest apps are trying to replicate this Chinese model. e.g. VK used to be just a Russian clone of Facebook. now it's a messenger, social network, payment app.. there are games, you can even order food I think, etc. I guess this is what happens when state-owned or state-related capitalism becomes the norm in a country
I was so against the "cluttered" design, but I kept watching and Im so glad I did. Never thought that culture would impact design in this way. Very interesting video!!
2:54 lol ah yes all centralized and all knowing. Super app. The track every single thing you do app. Excellent
I mainly don't like the idea of a super app because it makes it more difficult for new services to take over. monopolys are always bad.
3:26 In India, we have similar apps (UPI apps for payments) that also offer chat features, although this functionality is not widely used and people prefer WhatsApp to chat.
❤👍👍👍👍👍🔥🙏😍👏❤️I don’t know how I end up in this program, but I have to say-I am so pleasantly surprised in the excellence of the program. All the best to you, Yu!
Amazing work breaking down the cultural connection to the design.
I experienced a similar WeChat experience to your dad in China whilst trying to buy fruit from a streetside fruit vendor. I tried purchasing with cash and they looked at me like I was crazy.
Right?? It’s almost like a right of passage
They took minimalism too serious, this kind of new apps are terribly bad. They are even disabling functions to make it clean.
As a Mexican, I love the idea of having everything in one app. Collectivity before individuality.
I am also Mexican and I agree
I like many of the points you make here and the way you're presenting it, but I feel like some super important aspects explaining these trends are glossed over, namely historical, political and economic differences between China and the West. Just like you emphasise the importance of culture, UX designers can also benefit from understanding the economic systems that shape the tech industries we work for.
Great video! And very well presented that too, also well spoken. I love it!
About leapfrogging, another very important factor that's not mentioned and that needs to be taken in consideration is the ease of use of mobile phones, compared to computers.
I saw this with several elder people who tried to get desktops/laptops to eventually only use them only to check their emails and holiday pictures. But when those same people got a mobile phone and/or a tablet their relation with technology completely changed. The whole experience is so much more easy!
that kind of design gonna destroy my eyes 💀💀
I spent a couple of months in China and honestly, I don't think it is too hard to get used to. While it did irritate me at first, after using those few apps (Alipay, Wechat, Taobao, Meituan) for like 3 days, it wasn't even a hassle anymore, because it is just so convenient even if it is somewhat of a clutter or reminiscent of the early Internet lol With those 4 apps, you can almost assimilate seamlessly into their livelihood - well, digitally, at least. As for the pop-ups in the APPs, they are alright, especially when you compare them to those pop-ups on computer sites that asks you for your permissions and cookies, or wikipedia asking for donations.
Another thing that might destroy your eyes at first, but you grow accustom to quickly is: when you watch Chinese streams, there is an option to enable on-screen comments where you will see chat comments fly by across the screen in front of the stream. It used to bother me, but eventually, you just kinda automatically grow used to it. I remember coming back to the US and not being used to having to move my eyes to the right to read a Twitch chatbox lol
kay, I’ve always scratched my head about the obsession around the kislux book totes and their practicality, but this one is adorable!! Congratulations
One-super app versus many apps is just an argument of how different countries allow monopolies to flourish
It is the opposite. There are existing monopolies in each sector and they don't let the new tech startups penetrate. So there wouldn't be a one-super app.
The conflicting point is that when every companies build a super app there is no one super app anymore
I also don't see what's the problem with using different apps. Okay, you need to switch between the apps. What's the problem though? Is it somehow different from switching between functionalities within a superapp? Convenience doesn't seem to be the case here, as integrations between the apps can provide just the same.
Taking the example from the video, the only issue I see with ordering a coffee is that mobile wallet required update. However, it's a problem with the wallet app that doesn't let you to use it without immediate update. I often see apps handle it well lately.
This is so insightful! I'm a designer, learning UX design and have noticed something similar in India, our e-commerce apps like Amazon and Flipkart also have very saturated screens, I wonder if they adopted that with this mentality? Fascinating!
In some ways, I feel like Chinese app design is better. I'm American, and one reason I hate using my smartphone is because you can't see much information at once, there's a lot of wasted space, and you have to switch between a ton of apps to get anything done. Everything feels sloppy and disjointed. Most Americans like lots of white space and only being able to see and do a few things at once, whereas I kind of miss the way it was on the early Internet, when web pages were jam-packed with info and you could see everything at a glance. I noticed a few websites in other countries still have that old design philosophy in some ways, and Chinese app design seems a lot like what I grew up with in the 1990s, but done on mobile rather than desktop.
In the early days of the Internet, it seemed like there was going to be more integration and more ability to display a lot of information at a glance, but as the original "nerd" type people who built the systems became a minority, the average American using an iPhone pushed design in the direction of being really full of white space and only be able to do and see a few things at once. I wonder what it means that I prefer the way Japanese websites and Chinese apps are, even though I'm American? Is it related to IQ, is it that I am somehow maladapted to my own culture? Weird to think about for sure. The American designs to me look dumbed down and artsy, not functional or informative. Like they're designed to waste your time and limit what you can do, while making you feel like you're getting more than you are... the American apps and "modern" web design have always felt to me like a big bag of potato chips that's less than half full, if that makes sense. To give you an idea of how much this type of person I am that only a very nerdy audience would get... I'm the type of person that loves Emacs and uses a fork of classic Firefox to keep using a ton of old XUL extensions.
yo I loved that you picked your sources as videos and clipped them, is like having a personalized playlist of the things I like ready to watch
There’s nothing collectivist about cross-industry monopolies (edit to clarify: they add value to neither the community nor the individual). Western countries have distributed economies and antitrust laws to prevent these apps forming. I don’t think it would fly here to allow one company to have dominating control over every aspect of constituents’ lives. It’s already problematic when your Uber account is deactivated. These apps thrive in authoritarian or planned economies.
It’s true that it’s more effort for the consumer to have multiple apps, but it is something that Phone OEMs can design around and the home screen exists for a reason and it already looks like these apps for a reason. Standards exist for the interchange of data between these apps and the services that use them will eventually win.
It’s true that phone OEMs have too much control over users but that’s why there is so much legal action between governments, OEMs and social networks.
I also hate the UX of QR-codes-to-pay. I can see the appeal if you don’t want to participate in international banking standards, but at least use NFC or something secure and more reliable.
Eh, I have lived in the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, South Korea and China. I quite like the all in one ( wechat in China, Kakao in South Korea), it just works super well with the way my brain works. I like how well things are integrated. In the Netherlands everything has an app...but things are so disjointed and messy compared to the asian all in one that I just do not bother. I hate it whenever I am forced to use the app version of some Dutch company. Their UX design suuuucks. And they get away with it because these damn companies feel barely any pressure to improve because they are oligarchs who do not compete with each other in practice only on paper, their only goal is to lock you into their crappy ecossytem, so they all suck. Meanwhile in Asia, integration has to be good with the super app because otherwise people just switch to the more convenient option in the same app. these super apps they are basically like a mini OS whereby other companies offer services within the app. But the mindset is also different here in asia: convenience& integration rather than capture & lock in.
If every app has everything in a super app, then nobody has an actual monopoly of it. The irony of your comment is that the western set up is actually the one encouraging more monopoly.
Using your example with Uber. You can only request an Uber via Uber app while in my experience in China, you can request a ride service in several apps, you can even request official taxi services in many apps and even in the official ride sharing app you can choose between an official taxi or a regular driver.
I have experienced more challenges in "choosing" in the western market than in the asian market. I was banned from Paypal long ago without any clear reason and tried to contact them and they just kept repeating a letter like a robot. At that time, there were not many paying options from my country, so I ended giving up on my purchase. So I don't buy that bs argument that western environment is less monopolistic.
I lived in China for 2 years and the actual challenge was being overwhelmed with options when doing online shopping, i.e. While here, most of the market is heavily influenced by Amazon, which ironically failed in China, since couls not keep with so many competition and low prices, while here they can charge higher delivery prices.
Personally I think it's more about those huge companies trying to be monopolies (and succeeding in some cases). Keeping the user locked into a single app means less chances for the user to go to a competitor
Total reliance on your phone is total control of you. Chinese phone companies have cut phone service to individuals at government command.
It’s more of a business strategy than a UX design. Separating different features into different apps was Google’s idea some years ago. They implemented that standard into Android system’s guideline. Apps on iOS also followed the same principle later. For users, feature aggregation to certain extent has its usefulness. According to a study, mobile users actively dislike to install too many apps. Chinese apps abuse this principle to extreme, while western apps do the opposite. I think the best peak is somewhere between these two trends. ❤
one party + mass surveillance = super app
(western) ux designer here! one of the primary goals when observing users is to figure out what their mental mappings are, and what they intuitively want to accomplish. because if you can reduce cognitive load you improve a user’s experience. i can’t say for certain that ux designers in china/japan also try to reduce cognitive load, but it would certainly raise my eyebrows if they didn’t.
that’s the whole idea behind the “less is more” saying, less features means less scanning and thinking about a task you want to accomplish. so from that end i’d be super curious to know what the methodology ux designers in china/japan utilize to reduce cognitive load without reducing features!
They probably don’t care of reducing cognitive load, I doubt because UI clearly shows that they haven’t done so.
The Wall Street journal example felt really silly, you opened four different apps? You essentially opened four different apps inside of the we chat app too, so you could frame that as 5 different apps. Not being able to use the built in multitasking features of the operating system is a hindrance in those apps.
Interesting video, but I think it glosses over some very important context that was missed in lieu of focusing on the cultures. I will preface this by saying I am generally pro-china, but the reason those apps are so popular is because that it allows the companies, to gather analytics more effectively. I wouldn’t argue that the US doesn’t do this either, but their ability to do so is enabled by Apple (or Google) while the Chinese are hindered by those US companies. The Chinese companies are able to circumvent this and gain better analytics on their users by forcing them into an ecosystem that allows for complete surveillance across all of their products. It’s much easier to get someone to download 1 super app than 6 different separate apps all competing for the same user base. Whether this is any more or less malevolent than when US companies do it isn’t something I really care about, but it is the WHY behind the HOW (the user interface) that I think is worth exploring.
The same effect can be achieved with a western style ui, so it does beg the question of why super apps, not why super apps look the way they do.
The apps look cluttered because of the chinese characters. Try imagining a modern app with text in all caps. I t would look cluttered too.
I'm a French product designer for big corporations and I found your video very interesting! Thank you!! Very interesting this notion of Super App.
i don't like these apps design personally, but I don't think it is "Weird". At the same time your ideology is shaped by a single standard.
I'm sure monopolizing apps makes it very easy to trace, track, and watch people.
So what happens when you say something "offensive" and you get banned from the app. You cannot buy anything or go anywhere.
That’s not how WeChat works
I had the same question when I moved to China 2 years ago. This video is the most comprehensive answer I got so far. 谢谢Phoebe!
But I am a tech nerd, so through my perspective I though that as Chinese companies do not control the phone/pc operating systems like Apple and Microsoft do, they just want to control more of user experience through the instruments that they already have (apps). Thats how we ended up the superapps, a way to build better UX for those, who do not control OS. Because most of the cross-integration you're talking about google/apple is achieving without cluttering a single app as much.
As a more true to live example, apple have a universal QR scanner widget, that can scan anything. And it would be even more convenient for user, if companies like Alibaba or Tencent allowed their QR codes to be scanned through this universal scanner. But they explicitly don't. Because they want you to use their's, not Apple's, even if it would be more convenient for the end user.
Also, from a technical standpoint, the engine of these "superapps" is just a modified web browser. So this is the case, when I'd rather open a menu of the restaurant in a safari and pay with applepay, rather than seeing a bunch of meituan advertisements before I get to the page of order where it will make me share my phone. Or better, native apps present in the western countries, are ALWAYS better optimized and working faster than webapps like in wechat. So I really don't understand what's wrong with switching between apps. You do the same thing inside wechat anyway.
the west went for minimalism. THE EAST WENT FOR MAXIMALISM.
How should we be in the Middle East?
@@ArminAmiriNasab atheists
I'm from nyc and not Chinese, these last two videos have been extremely helpful even in just highlighting what the different trends are, not to mention then your evaluation of why they're good/bad. thank you!
I wish the US adopted more of this design. It’s informative and nice to look at
Uhmmm no thanks
Hell NO 🤮🤮
it is Chinese character system that make this design even possible，let alone good or bad. imaging that page in english, total disaster.
this !!!!
You really called it "collectivism"!? 😂😂 We know what it truly is.. *ahem* communism *ahem*.
I used to prefer western UI designs as they are much cleaner. However, it is actually not a problem of Chinese Apps that seem to be too “clutter.” As all of these apps have good internal search engines, it is not an issue any more. And it is also about the purpose of the App. For example, Apps like WeChat Reading or Tencent Music, have clean UIs. And it is not only about design or culture, most of these UIs are the result of intensive A/B test. The designs lead to better business targets will survive.
As a full stack dev lead, we not only have to consider the young group, but the senior group is much harder to handle. Give them straight sign or button to click, is the best way.
I looked at two apps while watching this video, the Amtrak app and the Chicago Ventra app. They both have cluttered home screens, but the Ventra one feels more useful whereas the Amtrak app I immediately navigate away from it. I get the sense that if US companies started giving us more information on screen, they’d just clutter it with crap. And not crap as in stuff, just garbage. Even with Clipper in San Francisco, I don’t use the app. I just add cash on Apple wallet since it’s easier to navigate. Also, the Chinese super apps did evolve and there is only so much you can add without having to do a whole redesign.
The UA-camr, Answer In Progress, in her video titled "why Japan's internet is weirdly designed" covers some aspects of this when she compared Japanese websites to Western ones. It's worth a look.
I love how you integrated lofi sounds interesting your background sounds.
I do like the idea of the apps working in tandem with one another and the visual style is reminiscent of the old web. The combo meal analogy is also very good.
If implemented with productivity in mind, the 'clutter' can become 'information dense'.
this was an incredibly fascinating topic, and you did an amazing job at putting together all this info and delivering it ^-^
I don't think many people see Bruce Lee as an artist. They see him as a fighter, because that's what he did. He fought, with martial arts. He would be near the bottom of the barrel of choices for artists.
4:03 i am out at this point. The number of apps used is irrelevant. You have to recognise the different processes anyway. The whole idea of super apps is just about control. If my app does everything, it will be easier to control more human behaviour. A good video tho
I picked up a lot of new perspectives in this video, awesome! Having a super app also makes the Chinese less dependant on US-made Android and iOS.
on a related note, the damage google has done to design in the USA is horrendous, information density is yet to recover to the levels of the early 2000s and its depressing
Here in Thailand, we kinda get the worst of both worlds. Our ecommerce apps are incredibly cluttered but still have to open multiple apps (i.e. banking apps for payment)
I really appreciate the simplicity of the video.
It would be better if there was no background music.
Keep making these informative videos. Best wishes for you.
Thank you for the explanation. Easily to absorb
After watching this I still don't understand how cleaner, more efficient UI would hurt those "super apps"..
Having ads under every single icon in Taobao doesn't make it more useful.
Blame me for oversimplifying this matter, but I think it's purely a question of competition. If the state didn't let monopolists flourish, Chinese customers would have way more choice in terms from those alternative apps, we would see a shift in bigger platform UIs.
Plus, I don't see how people would prefer aggressive marketing, like constant pop-ups, click bait icons etc. over those apps which respect your time and attention span.
I just love this channel. The combination of Design and psychology. Even though there are other channels like this, this one is super interesting and well explained in a funny way.
as a Chinese, I really want to fix their UI because I get dizzzyyy, I like simplicity desings
1 most annoying problem with Chinese-made apps is that they take up a lot of device memory space, and consume a lot of data 😔
I understand why some people still don't get it, that proves the point of the cultural differences.
In Interior Design for example, some prefer minimal, others prefer cozy. It's a matter of perception. A royal palace with lots of antiques, paintings, rugs and patterned wallpapers might be beautiful, but overwhelming for others.
Cluttered Designs are just a bad user experience for some users, no matter how the UI is refined, even though using different menus will still make it overwhelming for them.
Simple Designs are just "incomplete" for other users, which means a bad user experience as they perceive it.
This video ended up being so much more interesting that I imagined going in. The comparison between the level of information on the street of the US and China really made it click.
I prefer simply and clean UI personally, it's easy to navigate. Great video tho, I don't think I've seen anyone cover this topic before
I'm a UX from Brazil, south America, and this approach to facilitate and have the "happy meal" on a supper app it would make a lot of sense, for elders or accessibility here. We consume a lot of Western design, which is very exclusive and we have many problems such as illiteracy, digital or otherwise. Thank you for the content 😸
Great video! I have always wondered why Chinese software design looks like spam pages from the early 00s
Keep up the outstanding work! As a business owner and developer, this information is key to develop great experiences for all kinds of users. Your video on Japan was great and this one is too! Looking forward to your next upload.
I'm Indonesian and i have such super-app really similiar to the "typical chinese UI" in this video. I hate it, it's so slow and there's at least 1 second delay whenever i click something. On top of that, there are some pop up ads whenever i open it for the first time and some other smaller ad annoyingly blinking in the corner. Everything about that app makes me want to force-close it as fast as i can.
I believe the most important reason these types of super apps are so popular is that people are open to centralized control.