How To Build A Winning Website For The Chinese Market

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WHITE PAPER 19 th January 2016 How To Build A Winning Website For The Chinese Market James Breeze, ACI Fellow & Founder, Objective Experience Businesses now operate in a global economy, but we are

1 WHITE PAPER 19 th January 2016 How To Build A Winning Website For The Chinese Market James Breeze, ACI Fellow & Founder, Objective Experience Businesses now operate in a global economy, but we are all well aware of the distinct cultural differences between the East and West. These differences filter down into consumer behaviour and influence how brands should interact with customers in different markets. Websites are used for exactly the same purposes in the East and West, so why do Chinese websites look so different? And, what does this mean for Western organisations that are launching their products and services in China? In a recent research project on website design in China, we set out to answer these questions and provide businesses with the insights they need to make their websites a success. If you can read Chinese, or you ve ever accidentally landed on a Chinese webpage, you ll know that they look very different to Western sites. Images, graphics and video are all kept to a minimum, while heavy blocks of text are common: QQ.com This might seem overwhelming for western users, but QQ.com is a hugely popular portal that s designed to pack as much information as possible into the homepage.

Our research In our tests, we showed Chinese consumers two website designs, a traditional text-heavy design and a Western-style image-heavy design.

2 Our research In our tests, we showed Chinese consumers two website designs, a traditional text-heavy design and a Western-style image-heavy design. With all participants the response was the same, even when users said they like the more visual design, they still wanted more information that they could read at a glance. Engaging, interactive graphics mean nothing if users are forced to dig deeper to get the information they need. Both QQ.com (above) and Yahoo.com (below) offer , news, finance and classifieds. Yahoo has lots of graphics and banners with visual icons for every section. In contrast, QQ.com is more textheavy, main navigation links have no distinct icons, and the pictures are small and only used to highlight the most important stories. Yahoo.com

3 Almost all the text on QQ is a link for further information, while on Yahoo most stories include a short introduction. By minimising graphics and maximising compact text links, Chinese websites can fit more stories and navigational items in the same space. We found that Chinese users consider text to be more important than images as they tend to scan the text on a page for topics they are interested in. Chinese websites still use graphics to draw attention to specific articles, but for Chinese users, if the image doesn t directly illustrate the topic of the article, it can cause confusion and negate the power of imagery. The importance of text is also obvious if we look at product-based shopping websites such as Amazon.com and Taobao.com. On Amazon, the pictures do the talking: many products have no accompanying text, and featured products are limited to product name and price the product visual is the hero. On the Taobao homepage, there are fewer products visible without the need to scroll, and each product gives an equal amount of space for the text and the image. Text-based navigation features prominently, compared to an image-based navigational carousel on Amazon. Even the animated centrepiece on Taobao uses text-heavy graphics. The Chinese market clearly prefers functional information to imagery.

4 Taobao.com Chinese users expect to be presented with a wide range of options up front, so they can choose if they want to go deeper or not. The Great Firewall of China blocks the vast majority of Western websites, and although workarounds such as subscription VPN services exist, most Chinese users have not been exposed to Western-style graphical websites. The differences aren t just a matter of preference though: language and technology both play a significant role. Each Chinese character represents a single syllable and is visually distinct from the next, so closely spacing characters doesn t affect readability. In English syllables are constructed using multiple characters, while letters, words and paragraphs must be correctly spaced. This means that in Chinese, more information fits into the same space. In this sense, written Chinese is more efficient than English. Until just a few years ago, internet speeds in China were painfully slow which explains the lowgraphics, high-text design style. In the 1990s, when Western countries were still using dial-up internet services, websites were similarly text heavy.

Chinese website design doesn t have to be boring Now, as broadband and high-speed access becomes more widespread throughout China especially in areas such as Hong Kong where fast internet

5 Chinese website design doesn t have to be boring Now, as broadband and high-speed access becomes more widespread throughout China especially in areas such as Hong Kong where fast internet in the norm things are changing. Large interactive graphics are becoming more popular, without entirely replacing text-heavy content, as seen in Radio Television Hong Kong s website: rthk.hk

6 This progression is also visible in Xiaomi s website, mi.com, which takes style queues from the Apple site: Mi.com (left), apple.com (right) Images are more prominent and text takes a back seat, but there are key differences. The left hand navigation bar is very prominent on Mi.com, and products and text descriptions are more evenly balanced (as we saw on Taobao s site). Here, Xiaomi embraces Western minimalistic style while still delivering what Chinese users expect: all the options on a single page. If you are launching a website for the Chinese market, it s important to consider these cultural and technological differences, and the expectations of Chinese users. It s easy to assume that what works in other regions will translate, but in China and other nonroman alphabet using countries this can be a mistake. For the best chance of success in these markets it s important that Western companies combine the best parts of Western business practices with local, cultural information. About the Author James Breeze is an ACI Fellow and a Customer and User Experience Strategist, Eye Tracking Expert, Usability Consultant and Photographer. He founded and runs Objective Experience in Sydney and Singapore and Objective Eye Tracking works across SE Asia. James is also a professional speaker and regular guest lecturer at universities across Australia and SE Asia.

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