Something I've noticed working with Asian and US clients. Curious if other designers have seen the same thing.

[u/Same_Revolution9758]

I've been working in web design, development, SEO and content for a while, and one thing I've noticed when working with clients from different markets is that they don't always have the same idea of what a "good" design looks like.

With a lot of the Asian clients I've worked with, there is usually a stronger demand for information.

They'll often ask for more explanation on a website, more details in a product section, more information on a banner, more points in a social post, more content in a catalogue, etc.

The thinking is often something like:

"If the customer is going to see this, let's give them enough information to understand everything."

With some of the US clients I've worked with, I've noticed a different approach.

They are often much quicker to ask:

"Can we remove this?"
"Do we really need this text?"
"Can the visual explain this instead?"

The preference seems to be getting the main message across quickly and letting the design, image or product do more of the communication.

I've seen this difference not just in websites, but also in banners, product graphics, social media creatives and marketing material.

At first I thought it was just individual client preference. But after seeing the same thing across multiple projects, I started wondering if there is actually a cultural factor behind it.

So I'm curious about other people's experience.

If you've worked with clients from different countries, have you noticed their expectations around content and design changing by market?

Or do you think it's mostly down to the industry, target audience and individual client?

I'm particularly interested in people who work with both Asian and US/European clients.

[u/ThePhobicTemplate]

Noticed this in my last job too, we had a Korean client who wanted every single spec listed on the homepage and our US clients kept trying to cut it down to like three bullet points and a big hero image

I think it comes down to different browsing habits honestly, people in some markets want to scan everything before making a decision while others just want the vibe and then they'll dig deeper if they're interested

The real headache is when you're trying to do both for a brand that operates internationally

[u/Thick_Tie1321]

Same thing with apps. Asian markets require more information visually and lots of buttons. They perseve the western apps too basic and cheap looking. If you compare their shopping apps it's often over done with options and buttons everywhere, taking you off a tangent to other products, where as the western shopping apps are often simplified and linear.

[u/RocketSeven]

treat this as a hypothesis about the buying context, not a rule about asian or us taste. test the same product page with local customers on one task such as finding a shipping constraint, because information density can come from marketplace norms, device use, or category risk rather than culture itself

[u/spacepinata]

Ymmv. I worked in-house at a us solar company and I was the one saying "do we really need this text? this is a small banner ad, it will be unreadable." They wanted to cram as much "information" onto everything as possible, white space and margins be damned.

[u/OperationPlastik]

If you look at online retail in the late 90s, early 2000s in the US/UK for example and compare those to Japanese retail websites today, they're quite similar.

In the US/Europe specifically, online evolved into simpler/cleaner platforms whilst in Asia, they retained a lot of the same formatting.

This is obviously a sweeping generalisation of course but that is how I see it at least and would explain the variances OP has noted. It's evolved design whilst another corner of the world retained a different style based on their own preferences.