Some cultures seek for simplicity, clean appearances. Designers in western regions tend to use clean and lots of spaces between elements. Conversely, when you see cities in asian countries, I realised that they are often appears to be pretty complex with multiple electronic signs crowding the air. Signs are bustling with information, every spaces are packed with images and billboards. This can also be noticed in the websites.
For instance, you notice the websites in asian countries are often a lot more complicated than the websites in western countries. I often think: how do they cope with such a complex websites that appears to have tones of informations in a single page? but the reality was that not everyone prefers simple and clear appearance, especially when people are accustomed to what they perceive in daily life. For example, when you see a messy office with books and files elsewhere, you would think that how can they cope with such apparent disorder? Well, my discovery from the book “Living with complexity” by Don Norman, the answer lies in the “underlying structure”. Their office seems complex to anyone who is unaware of the reasoning behind the messy piles. Once the structure is understood, there is no complexity. The differences in visual preferences among cultures needs to be respected by the designers.
