Japanese sites are defect free but U.S. sites are easier to use
Japanese web sites have fewer technological flaws than U.S. sites, but U.S. sites are easier for consumers to use, according to a new Forrester Research study.
Forrester evaluated 16 Japanese sites and 20 U.S. sites using its Web Site Review methodology, which scores web site performance based on value, navigation, presentation and trust.
“The biggest difference is the focus of the Japanese on the coding, sort of the technical side, looking at it from a manufacturing point of view,” says Ron Rogowski, analyst. “The code has got to be right, it’s got to be zero-defect, and it needs to be up all the time.”
In contrast, U.S. sites are more focused on providing cleaner displays, with essential content and function more in context and better spaced, Rogowski says. “They’re more in tune to what the key user’s goal is that they’re trying to satisfy,” he says.
For example, for a user trying to configure a vehicle and get a price quote at Honda U.S.A., the link is at the top of the page, Rogowski says. “On the Japanese site, it’s buried all the way at the bottom left corner of the page and you have to go scrolling down for it and hunt for it,” he says. “That seems a bit odd if you’re trying to facilitate car sales.”
However, Japanese sites require less complicated mouse movements. “They do the Japanese customers a service that is a basic thing that a lot of U.S. sites miss,” Rogowski says. At U.S. sites, “it frustrates people when they can’t go diagonally across, they have to go unnaturally straight horizontal and then straight down for a fly-out menu.”
The Japanese sites also used larger, easier to read type, a no-cost practice that sites the world over could greatly benefit from, Rogowski says.
Both Japanese and U.S. web sites perform poorly when it comes to providing links to privacy policies in context and in helping users recover from errors, the report says.
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