State of Korean Website Design

Matthew Weigand

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Korea is the land of 99 percent Internet connectivity for its citizens. However, it is also the land of ugly websites. Its sad to say, but it is true. It is as if most Korean web designers opened up a book of best practices in website design, went down the list, and did the opposite of every single suggestion. Confusing, flash-based menus, unnecessary blinking, extremely small fonts and a million links on one page hurt the eyes. Javascript and HTML tricks that are designed to hide the destination URL of a link and prevent it from being displayed in the address bar are the norm. Extremely confusing URLs, such as sitename.com/page01/page01_01.html boggle the mind. Korean website designers love ActiveX controls, even though they only work with Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer. And visitors to even supposedly respectable, mainstream websites can download a virus or trojan program through an advertisement listed on the page, which begins cluttering up their computer with useless programs and pop-up advertisements even as it compromises system security and perhaps adds the computer to a growing botnet.

Korean websites are so hard on the eyes and difficult to use and understand, that even if they are written in English, English-speaking users avoid them whenever possible. They seem to take longer to load, have much more potential of having errors, and generally don't work well at all.

The strange design choices of Korean website creators work together with the Korean language to effectively cut off the Korean Internet from the wider global net. This leaves Korea high and dry when it comes to global resources like Wikipedia or Google, because Korean users' awareness of or participation in these services is little to none.

Also, many of the choices made by Korean website designers seem to be along the lines of obscuring information. They hide links, hide individual pages, hide information. If the entire Internet followed those practices it would be a serious pain to find anything at all. Every site would be a walled garden, and it would be difficult to find or link to anything at all. The World Wide Web would become a Super Local Nothing.

Now, on the other hand, some would say that Korean websites are not ugly, they just make an efficient use of space. There is a lot of information out there, and Korean web users don't want any of it to be hidden. They want to be able to, for instance, scan all of the headlines of the newspaper in just a few seconds, or find the latest and greatest gadget in their online store without much moving or clicking of the mouse. The compact design of Korean websites are ideally suited for this situation.

Also, Flash is used to good effect to create a cute and approachable character for each site. Without the limitations that HTML has, Korean web designers can make something that is truly unique for each site, and displays the character of both the designers and the website owner. They have traded standards compliance for cuteness, and it is not such a bad trade.

Finally, the web works differently in South Korea. Most of the portals do not crawl web pages automatically, but base their search databases on registration and payment from websites. They do not need to go out and find a website's data, but let the site owners present their site in the best possible way - manually.

The World Wide Web is built with HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and this language was specifically designed to be easy, open and accessible to both automated systems and human users alike. But on the Korean peninsula it has become a tool for obfuscation, eye-strain and headaches. Without getting too technical, here are some major points that Korean websites could follow to make their sites more accessible and useful to the average visitor. While Korean web users might be used to the status quo, if Korean companies are interested in making websites that people from other countries can tolerate, and even enjoy, then they should follow these points.

First Comes Layout

Layout is a very important part of any design, but especially part of website design. Since websites are always about information, they should present their information in the best way possible. Information must be presented clearly, cleanly, and intuitively so that it can be read by the largest amount of visitors. Korean websites usually try to cram as much information as they can into four or even five tightly-squeezed columns of information. If a user has an older monitor, say with a resolution of 800x600, this information can become frustratingly illegible. And since one or two of these columns seem to contain flashing, scrolling advertisements, it can actually make someone physically sick when trying to concentrate on tiny text while yet another k-pop star dances like mad a few pixels over. Korean website designers should consider putting fewer things on a given page, and giving it more white space. This creates a calm, clean atmosphere like the page of book, allowing visitors to absorb the information quickly and easily.

Websites should be cleanly divided between video and text. Video too close to text makes the text difficult to read, and text too close to video makes the video difficult to concentrate on. This includes moving animations such as .gif files. Putting the video in the video area and the text in a text area makes both easier to understand. An efficient and minimalistic use of boxes can delineate the two areas without making anyone want to tear their eyes out.

Even if the layout is only text and photos, the organization of the average Korean website leaves much to be desired. The division between main menu items and sub-menu items seems to often be arbitrary and designed by committee. There is not a greater hierarchy or structure; no way to see any underlying organization in the design. This is further complicated by the standard Korean website practices of hiding a message board deep in the third or even fourth levels of the website innards. This message board can only display one message at a time, and its threaded replies. It looks like the message board hasn't been updated since 1998, and even when it is updated the replies are not so useful.

That Leaves Flash...

Flash is an over-used practice all over the Internet, not just in Korea. The Web was built on HTML, which is a very accessible form of information. It can be viewed in a variety of ways by both computers and people. Search engines such as Google generally send out automated web crawlers, called spiders, that automatically read and index HTML-based information. However, information contained within a Flash applet, such as a YouTube video, cannot be read or identified by a web spider. If a website's main menu is also a Flash-based menu, the automated spider cannot read the links in the menu, and cannot even access the rest of the website. This can be worked around by providing an alternative to the main Flash menu, usually a site map. However, without this workaround, a Flash menu website is essentially invisible to search engines, and therefore the world. This is basically a death sentence for any website that is trying to attract visitors. Websites should eliminate Flash whenever possible and replace it with standard HTML. Its faster, easier, cleaner and clearer.

Also, with HTML 5.0 coming out soon, Flash may become increasingly irrelevant for anything besides streaming video. HTML 5.0 includes a lot of new code for animation processing, code that is still accessible to text-based search engines. HTML 5.0 might take some time before it spreads to the world, but Korea needs to be prepared for it. It cannot expect its users to use Windows XP, IE7, and Flash 9.0 only, forever, until the end of time.

Then Comes a Revolution in Online Presence

This advice is not so useful for websites that are only interested in communicating with Korean users, because, of course, Korean users are already used to these practices. They expect flash animations, not knowing what the next link is pointing to, and the inability to share specific web pages with other people. But for websites looking to appeal to a wider audience, by simply implementing these two simple ideas they can attract more of the international web surfing crowd, which hopefully gains them a larger measure of success.

Korean companies talk about globalization all the time. They always express their desires to do more business worldwide. If a company is interested in doing anything at all beyond the borders of South Korea, it must have a standards-compliant, clear, understandable website with which to represent itself to the outside world. This is not optional, it is a requirement.