Over the years, I have had many encounters with Japanese websites — be it researching visa requirements, planning trips, or simply ordering something online. And it took me a loooong while to get…

George

Future

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Japanese websites often feature walls of text, bright colors, and numerous fonts due to several intertwined factors including font creation challenges, technological development and stagnation, and cultural influences. These design choices are deeply rooted in Japan's approach to web design and reflect broader societal and technological trends in the country. Understanding these nuances helps to comprehend why such designs differ significantly from Western website aesthetics.

Why Japanese Websites Look So Different

TL;DR Their fonts contain ~850 glyphs, so high barrier to make one, so most fonts look the same… they have to compensate somehow. Interesting.

Interesting analysis! I could never understand all the sites I saw Chinese using, but this makes sense.

Simply put the main reason is a Japanese website’s goal is more tilted towards providing information vs providing visual stimulation and entertainment value leading to a sale.
The respectful and cultured approach towards the audience is perfectly demonstrated by how CTA is performed differently.
Japanese: “Please Look Forward to This”
US/Western: “Buy Now!”
It is interesting how Germany is mentioned in the article, since they too, while creating high tech and global trends in design, are surprisingly using outdated tech and approaches in many ways.
The goal is to be efficient, low cost, and effective, not “modern”. And often, an old approach simply fits better.

Great read! Now I’m wondering what the consensus of accessibility is on a Japanese website.
For example, heavy use of text in images is usually something to avoid, since you’d either have to cram all of the text in an alt tag (not a good practice) or avoid it altogether and place text over the image with HTML and CSS. That way a screen reader can pick up on it.

Japanese is hard, it has higher information density than phonetic languages and it affects