[komali2]

Anybody that's done a/b testing for a Japan audience can relate to this.

I'll never pretend to sympathize with the nation's need for ten million characters of 8pt font spaghetti sprayed over every page, but I have long ago accepted it.

[bonellia]

Could you give us some examples of those? Since I don't browse websites in Japanese, I have no clue what that looks like. Thanks in advance.

[komali2]

Hah, YES! This will be fun :)

So, it's calmed down a bit, but here's the homepage for rakuten, the biggest ecommerce site in japan. Nothing too out line, except the very Japanese block-ads on the top of the page and running down the right side: https://www.rakuten.co.jp/

See also the "superdeal" page (this may expire) https://event.rakuten.co.jp/superdeal/?l-id=top_normal_flash...

Notice the quick scrolling banner, the word "DEAL" in english sprawled everywhere (with SUPAAAAA!!! in Japanese before it) lots of different color background blocks with white/black/red text over it. Very much the "assault the senses" style of Japanese advertisement.

The watch ad, for example. "50% OFF!" "ONLY UNTIL 4/2 9:59!!!" "GET 20% POINTS BACK!" "SUPER DEAL!!!!"

Here's the relatively more calm website for book-off, the largest retailer of books in Japan. I think reading is more popular in Japan as a hobby though I don't have empirical data as evidence, just my personal observation. Maybe I only think this way because the cities are more dense. Anyway: https://www.bookoff.co.jp/ scrolling banners with many colored backgrounds and different font colors, lots of "ZERO YEN!" kind of stuff, lots of different font stylings, sizes, etc. Controlled Chaos.

Notice also the prototypical "block style" ads all down the page. We probably think of them as "grids" or "cards" in the web dev world these days but they've been doing this on japanese internet since the 90s and it harkens to Japan print ads, magazines etc.

Ah, here we go, I knew Don Quixote (or Quijote) wouldn't disappoint. Right down to the url: "donki.com" lol http://www.donki.com/ not https note

GIANT banner ads scrolling at the top, as of now we've got a black and white one, sliced through with angled images. Simple model photo after that, another one but with a very blue background, then fourth one BOOM that classic Don Quixote eye assault, complex golden background with streamers, Japanese equivalent of comic sands with tilted font in all sorts of colors and sizes, the Don Quixote... penguin? screaming at you. Scroll down for more madness.

Thanks for asking me to do this, I haven't taken a peek at Japanese ecommerce sites in a while. In-person ads have hardly changed in Japan (I was there last week for the sakura) but it's clear to me that the web design styling has calmed down remarkably. If you ever get a chance to pick up some Japanese classifieds, you can get an even better sense of what we used to deal with :)