The Forefront of Chinese Design——Web Design Trends in 2015 (Selected)

The turmoil in the web industry and China's rapid development have many similarities: at least they are both unpredictable. But if you put the two things together, you will see a picture of the rapid change of China's Internet development. In order not to be left behind, we must look to the future and embrace change as early as possible.

Don't underestimate the web in China, it's not as simple as you think, especially in some key aspects - Chinese users' expectations are so different from Western users. Next, I will take you into the perspective of web experts to look at the popularity of mobile social platforms, as well as those excellent designers and works.

New Trends

In order to ensure that what I wrote was not wrong, I specially visited Saber Zou who was working at the forefront of design. Saber is the creative director of Logic Design. This is a digital studio located in the imperial capital. They once designed the website of the Asian Animal Protection Association, called "Exploring Asian Black Bears", which has a great visual impact and is one of the very few websites made in China that won the "Best Site of the Day" award from Awwwards.

"Saber, what do you think of China's responsive design?"

Saber shrugged his shoulders, as if I had asked a stupid question. He said, "There is not much responsive design in China. Most customers want different designs for different devices. So responsiveness is rarely mentioned in web design. We don't take desktop web pages as a basis, or even just see them as an enlarged mobile version. In fact, a large number of Chinese companies don't even consider the desktop experience."

Now I understand why those people treated me like a weirdo when they talked to me before. This is a completely different mindset: we are thinking about how to think about mobile-first experience from the desktop. In China, mobile has its own independent system and is not considered an extension of desktop. Desktop and mobile have always been two separate parts, and as desktop gradually retreats to the third choice (mobile phones, tablets), it will one day become dispensable.

Mobile first? Hehe~ China is already dominated by mobile...

China's mobile usage rate has exploded. As early as 2010, Nielsen pointed out that as more and more mobile devices are connected to the Internet, China's mobile platform consumption will far exceed that of the United States. And the market is only growing. Next Web also reported this fact in July 2014:

The proportion of Chinese netizens using mobile phones to access the Internet has risen to 83.4%, surpassing the 80.9% using desktop computers for the first time.

You may be thinking, "Doesn't everyone have a mobile phone?" Yes, you have one yourself, and you probably don't know anyone who doesn't. So you can't imagine this change, let alone the difference between China and the West. However, I actually want to say that this difference comes not only from the number of mobile users, but also from the Chinese people's mentality of "can't live without mobile phones." Some data can prove this theory, but it certainly can't achieve the effect of actual cases. The following are all real experiences:

• The mobile phone number of the Chinese people has become as important as the social security number of the American people. If you are unlucky enough to lose access to your mobile phone number, you will inevitably lose access to your e-commerce accounts, e-wallets, and social accounts bound to your mobile phone, etc. Because of this, people attach great importance to real-name verification of their mobile phone numbers, which not only prevents identity theft, but also facilitates the replacement of SIM cards after they are lost or damaged.
• Emails have been relegated to the background, and many Chinese websites have chosen mobile phones as the first choice for registering users and retrieving passwords. This is especially true since the popularity of emails in China is not as high as in the West.

• Chinese e-wallets all have the function of scanning QR codes to pay for everything, whether you are taking a taxi, enjoying a meal, or watching a movie, paying is that simple. Transactions under 300 yuan do not even require password confirmation. In other words, losing your phone is no different from losing your wallet.
• According to data from the World Bank, in 2011, 69 people out of every 1,000 in China used means of transportation, while the figure in the United States was 768 out of 100. Imagine how many Chinese people without cars use public transportation every day. This means they spend more time using their phones, because at this time, phones are obviously more attractive than staring blankly at the person opposite them.

In this atmosphere, it is no wonder that some companies abandon the desktop and focus on pure mobile experience. Such experience, euphemistically called "light application", has quickly become popular and has become the main means of interaction between products and users.

Light Application

Websites are a thing of the last century. Today, Chinese companies are developing lightweight apps. Light apps are small, one-time sites that don't need to be downloaded, have a clear purpose, and are usually animated pages made with HTML5. Oh, of course, they also have a dedicated URL, and you can open them on your computer if you insist, but they are terrible. Sometimes, even if you open them, you can't use them because some lightweight apps require gestures to operate.

Light apps often play a role in viral transmission. They are usually quite simple, with few pages, concise information and clear purpose. In other words, users usually open it once, scroll to the bottom, share it with friends, and then nothing happens.

Light applications flourish

Scene Application is a company that specializes in providing light applications, and they also hope to become the leader of light applications in China.

Next, I will show you some small examples of light applications. You can open it on your phone in two ways: the cool and awesome way is to scan the QR code, or the tacky way is to use the mobile link. If you want to open it with a computer browser, you may not be able to use it even if you can open it. But I strongly recommend you to check it out on a computer, so that you can feel how much the development of Chinese light applications ignores the desktop experience...

Well-known brands will display their year-end financial reports through light applications, just like Cheetah Mobile

This is what Xiaomi, a new mobile phone company, uses for recruitment

There are also some light applications to celebrate some important dates, such as Lenovo's 30th anniversary.

Some are used to warm up before the movie is released, such as this trivia game that tests your understanding of Jiang Wen

There are others that report on current events, such as NetEase's "2014: The Darkest Year in Aviation History."

#p#

Want to see more?

Considering that light apps are usually fast-moving consumer goods, the number of visits usually decreases gradually. Fortunately, some of them can last longer. For more light app cases, you can go to the successful case page of scene applications or the social mobile rankings, or the articles about mobile on Shuying, where they usually share some light apps.

The recommended action is "share" rather than "buy"

On the last page of a light app, users usually only see the sharing operation - it is quite rare to ask users to spend money directly. Unlike the Western mobile sharing experience, which usually allows users to choose a preferred social platform for sharing, Chinese light apps only have one choice: WeChat, which has a mobile Internet coverage rate of 83% in China but is little known in the West.

WeChat: 500 million monthly active users lead the light application revolution

Data from the China Internet Network Information Center shows that China has 527 million mobile Internet users, of which 438 million are on WeChat, almost twice as many as Twitter.

You may ask your foreign friends, what is their preferred method of contact, email, Google+, Facebook or SMS? China does not have a situation where there is a competition among social networks, so "which method is the best to contact you?" is not a problem that exists in the Chinese Internet. I am not saying that China has only exclusive social products, but no matter how many other products there are, there is always a leader, just like the universal umbrella network has the largest share of the US Internet market.

In the past, this thing in China was Penguin QQ and Sina Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter)

However, Saber told me that Weibo has been shut down and has become a platform for people to read news and passively receive information. Its social attributes have gone bye-bye.

Today, the dominant product is still WeChat, a product of Penguin. WeChat is a social networking product exclusively for mobile platforms released in 2011. It brings together short messages (text input and voice input), group chats, Moments (similar to Facebook subscriptions), dating (nearby and shake), and a large number of emoticons. In addition, it also provides an embedded browser and development interface, playing a big game.

Three or four years ago, a large number of brands spent money on Flash mini sites for promotion, but now they have moved to the WeChat platform. Flash has a hard life. When the iPhone was popular, Steve Jobs abandoned Flash, which directly led to its demise. China's Internet must naturally keep up with the international trend. If your website is a piece of shit when opened on WeChat, your market will definitely fail.

WeChat is so popular that light applications have to be associated with it. They are almost customized for the WeChat browser. The only button, "Share to Moments", is a blatant sign of the rhythm.

I have seen many non-Chinese mobile developers say that they test their development results on different browsers. In China, it is enough to test WeChat. As long as it is OK here, everything will be fine.

QR codes flying everywhere

Are QR codes a flash in the pan? Maybe elsewhere, but China is like the Robert Downey Jr. of the Internet (Iron Man, you know), who was once imprisoned for drug use and is now a global sensation. QR codes also experienced initial turmoil, were spurned, fought back, and are now everywhere. They are everywhere in print, on the web, and in TV commercials. Users can scan them with their phones, like this holiday card app (don’t try, it’s not working anymore…).

Using a mobile phone to scan a computer screen sounds weird, but yes, Chinese people are just that weird… Because WeChat is so popular in China, some QR codes are used to follow official accounts, and some are used to open light apps in WeChat. QR codes provide an experience that offline promotions cannot achieve by connecting to WeChat.

It has to be said that WeChat has greatly promoted the popularity of QR codes. WeChat has a "Scan" function, which allows users to interact with QR codes in WeChat, such as opening light apps, opening accounts, directly opening web pages, making mobile payments, and doing all kinds of things. Many advertisements no longer have the company's URL, but instead have a QR code that users can scan to access the official website.

Don’t believe it? Come and see the case?

There are so many cases that I can’t finish posting them (I can only say that foreigners are making a fuss about nothing…)

summary

I have provided UI consulting services to many foreign companies on entering the Chinese market, and I always say that it is not just a matter of translating your website into Chinese and calling it a day. The truth is that it is either not for the Chinese market or it is for the best. If you do it half-heartedly, it is obvious that you will not only waste money, but also lose the trust of your users. By deeply understanding Chinese users, how they use the Internet, and then prescribing the right medicine (WeChat, light apps, QR codes), you can get closer to Chinese users.

Translator of this article: TerryFan

Source: http://www.jianshu.com/p/3092f51dd058