Design in other countries

I was presenting to a prospect with Paul Hitchins of Verve this week. The prospect worked with German customers and out of the blue one of the directors asked what we saw as the differences between German and British design. 

I could see the sale dissapearing before my eyes, but Paul with a some aplomb,  launched into a presentation on the subject as if he had been preparing all week. 

I wish I could do that.

Thinking about this later, I have to say I don’t see the same difference between say German and British design as against European and American design.  Over the pond the imagery sometimes seems to me a little cruder, the fonts a little bigger, the colours a little moire garish.  Is this my imagination? 

Looking for a reason I think it might be down to US Television standards.  They have fewer pixles to work with and the colour definition varies from just about acceptable to downright awful.  TV is so pervasive that the design constraints of the medium have maybe filtered through into all graphic design.

As the US switches to digital TV will US design start to look more European?  Or is it all in my mind?

Bob
Textor

An interesting area indeed. It's not just design and usability, either - I'd add in cultural, marketing, commercial, legal, editorial, pretty much everything really.

For all that the web is global, and for all that content management systems and templating can let you roll out country-specific sites with relative ease, there is little research that I'm aware of about the variances and similarities in best practice for site design, online marketing and e-commerce across different countries and regions. Of course, there are many factors involved, including internet penetration levels within the country, broadband penetration etc.

The "cultural" example that I always hear (and I'd like to hear a few others) is that Germans don't like paying for things with credit cards online whereas other Europeans are quite happy to do so.

Ashley

On 09:18:09 12 August 2004 Dan Zambonini wrote:

I find this subject pretty fascinating.  Especially when the subject is expanded to not just design, but usability.  In particular, I wonder what research Ebay use - take a look at some of their international sites, including:

www.ebay.co.uk
www.ebay.com.au
www.ebay.ca

There must be a large expense associated with researching, designing and maintain these different sites in each country.  In particular, the australian and canadian ones are quite similar, but almost back to front versions of each other (the home page 1,2,3 steps).  Anyone know of any case studies of ebay design or similar?

Dan

-----
Box UK

The issue with Germans not liking to pay for credit cards online is not so much that they "don't like" to do it, they simply can't as credit cards are not widely used and they are used to other ways of paying for goods such as bank transfers or COD (the post office can collect and process payments). I lived in Munich for 3 years and found that having plastic was almost useless. On the continent Germans are not alone in acting this way.

Going back to difference in design in other countries: it is interesting to note that in Asian countries that use logographic characters (such as China and Japan) it is quite cumbersome to use these to enter search terms and web-users in these markets often prefer to use directory listings to click their way through searches instead.

On 10:08:08 12 August 2004 Ashley wrote:

The "cultural" example that I always hear (and I’d like to hear a few others) is that Germans don’t like paying for things with credit cards online whereas other Europeans are quite happy to do so.

Ashley