![]() Its crammed homepage is typical of the designs that many foreigners have characterized as busy and complex. China News was one of the sites we tested. All used desktop computers to perform their tasks. ![]() The Chinese users verbalized their thoughts in Mandarin, whereas foreign users spoke English. The sessions were conducted with the think-aloud method, with each user asked to complete two tasks on 8 websites from a list of 14 websites chosen to span a range of design complexity from simple, one-column responsive patterns to busy, high-density portal-like ones. In total, 12 users participated in this research, 6 people in each of our two segments. The Chinese and English versions of the sites were generally equivalent in terms of design complexity. The expatriates worked with English versions of Chinese desktop sites, while the Chinese used the Chinese versions. We were curious whether this trend has reached China, and how it will play in with the purported local tradition of complexity.Īs a twist, we tested with both native Chinese users and expatriate foreigners living in China. ![]() Our research had also a secondary motivation: in the current world of responsive design, we’ve seen a trend towards insufficient information density and simplifying sites so that they work well on small screens but suboptimally on big screens. To understand whether Chinese web design is indeed too complicated and whether Chinese users are in some way specially equipped to deal with this complexity, we turned to a more appropriate usability methodology: emprical testing with the target audience. However, since they usually can’t use the sites - not being able to read Chinese - such impressions, formed purely by looking instead of using, are not a valid user experience assessment. Foreigners often say that Chinese websites are overly complex and busy in their design.
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