Interface design in Russia and other countries. Bigtechs and superapps

Disclaimer

This article describes my thoughts, observations and research in the field of user interfaces and design in general. In particular, cultural aspects are described, various approaches and cultures are compared. If inaccuracies are found, I will be glad if you inform me. Also, as the Asian flagship of design, I often mention China and its experience.

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Why this topic

I was inspired to write an article on this topic by a Chinese woman, Phoebe Yu, and her video “Chinese app design: weird, but it works» (Chinese app design: weird but works).

She looked at the design of major Chinese apps. Why they are so cluttered, but still work. The 10-minute video can be summed up in a few theses: culture and “combo experience.”

While watching this video, I thought about our design, how we use Asian patterns, and how we combine them with Western ones. In order to delve into the issue of interface design culture in Russia and other countries, it is necessary to analyze aspects of each of the cultures.

Cultural issue

Asia

Chinese culture is diverse and rich, but what do we know about it today? When imagining a Chinese city, cultural attributes come to mind, be it lanterns or hieroglyphs, the streets are covered with neon signs, and a typical poster looks like a product book, where one description may take up half a page, and the other will talk about how profitable it all is and how limited in time.

This approach is quite different from what we are used to seeing in our everyday life. But why is it like this for them and not for us? Why do they walk under an abundance of neon signs, see so much text on posters, and we do not? It's all about the differences in cultures and societies.

There are two types of cultures, the so-called High context and Low context cultures.

High-context cultures — these are cultures where interpersonal relationships are based on rules and traditions, where there is a large layer of cultural information that is read intuitively by representatives of the culture. In other words, the cultural context helps to understand feelings, as well as to build one's behavior.

Low context cultures – these are cultures where free interaction prevails, where there is directness, and you don’t have to be part of the culture to understand what is being said, whether it is a hint.

This also explains the difference in communication design (in posters and, for example, menus). In Asian countries, you need to have complete information, since completeness of information is a sign that the choice will be made correctly. This also explains the eccentric design of websites in Japan for us. Over time, the trend subsides, but still, precisely because it is important for the Japanese to have as complete information as possible, interfaces are overloaded, immediately giving a wide choice, a large set of content and an extensive description.

Everything that is outside is in phones. Culture is also seeping into the digital world: a bunch of information, functions, offers – all this inside one application, because you need to provide a choice, a detailed description and ensure accessibility.

But why mobile apps? It's actually quite simple. At the time when the Internet was just beginning to develop, when the first websites started to appear and when little had been invented in interface design, the world was unevenly immersed in the Internet. Thus, in 2005, only 5% of the population in Asia and Oceania used the Internet, while in Europe and America it was 46% and 36%, respectively. Because of this, over the years, a “Mobile first” trend has developed in Asian countries, when the first access to the Internet began from smartphones, and the primary version of the product is the mobile version.

The smartphone is the cheapest way to interact with the Internet, both then and now. That is why smartphones in China are the main way to communicate with the world (messengers, shopping, payment).

West

Western culture consists of a great number of variables. However, Western design is the closest to us, both communicative and digital. Here the emphasis is not on language and description, but rather on forms, colors, metaphors and overall composition. Metaphors, by the way, are one of the distinctive features of Western design; in Asia, metaphors are used quite rarely, and we have just discussed the reasons above – completeness of information is needed.

Western design is widely used in our country, but at the same time, mass culture and Western phenomena transmit such thinking to the rest of the world. However, although the spread of Western culture and design in most countries is inexorable, it eventually creates a symbiosis of local culture with the Western one.

The Internet and wide access to it were first received by Western countries, which imposed the rules of the game. The design of web interfaces and later mobile applications was developed at that time by this part of the world. You can also notice the diversity and constant changes. The design world did not stand still, so the visuals of sites from pages with endless gifs and animations have turned, at the moment, into a temple of minimalism.

In design, as in technology, there have been strong changes in short periods of time. Trends have appeared, faded, and re-emerged. Just as people have moved from a landline phone in their apartment to smartphones in 15 years, so has the design world, created primarily by Western companies and designers, changed dramatically.

Metamorphoses

But still, China at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century is trying to strengthen its position in the world, launching broad economic reforms. At the same time, European and other factories began to move or establish themselves in Asia en masse, most of them in China. Art spaces were opened and installations were organized on the sites of former enterprises in the West. Asia did nothing about this for a long time, continuing to develop industry and areas related to this sphere.

But ultimately China wants to be a leader in many areas, not just electronics, for example, but also art/design. And for many years now China has been making huge strides to create a new design culture in the country. What are international design conferences worth? Beijing Design Week or GDC Award.

Let's finally move on to the main thread of the article.

Asian UX

Having understood why mobile applications have become the main ones in China and having remembered a little about the culture, it is worth taking a look at their design solution.

The image shows the WeChat app. It is a Chinese product and the country's main app, which combines almost everything that could be used on the Internet. This social network, messenger, electronic wallet And banking. With this application, you can chat with friends, buy movie tickets, watch your mother's publication, and all this in a store, where at the checkout you can pay for purchases using a QR code using the same application.

Let's define what UX is. User Experience, or user experience, as it is usually perceived, but in fact it is a more global thing, it is the logic of interaction, convenience, it is the balance within the application. As for Asian UX, they apply the definition Combo Experienceis a connection of services within a single application, like a McDonald's Happy Meal (a product offering a combination of two or more experiences). WeChat came out in 2011 and created a new branch of design development, namely Superapps, applications that combine many services.

Superapp is a large application that combines several services/mini-apps.

The emergence of WeChat marked the beginning of the super app era in Asia, allowing businesses to expand more seamlessly and have new services initially supported by old ones (for example, the launch of a taxi could be immediately linked to maps, driving traffic from maps to the taxi app).

Superapps became the pinnacle of the combo experience idea, creating on the one hand an overloaded interface, but providing a full experience of interaction with business products.

Western UX

We've covered the differences between cultures, now it's time for digital design. Let's remember what apps look like and try to find something in common.

Let's look at the maps (I took Apple maps as an example, since in America it has more flexible functionality). When choosing a restaurant, standard actions are offered: build a route, call, go to the website, look at reviews.

No frills, no way to call a taxi, no way to order food, but you can call the old-fashioned way. The same goes for Google Maps. There are no heavy clutter or additional services in the design, there is a main task – to build a route and introduce the establishment, this is where the flexibility ends.

Let's look at examples of superapps. In fact, there are no such things… There are several reasons for this, but first let's look at a rather distant example.

Superapps in the West are more like small integrations. For example, in the Uber app you can call a taxi, take a scooter and pay for everything with banking, and Meta* has an integration of Facebook** Shops and Instagram*** Shops, where you can pay for everything with Facebook** Pay.

Due to strict antitrust laws, it is not so easy for large companies to create a super app; they need competing apps so that Messenger**** and Snapchat have competition, Doordash and UberEats have competition, etc. Apps that cover a large number of tasks at once are disadvantageous for competition, since large businesses will displace all medium and small players due to the number of integrated products and their availability.

In fact, the trend for separate applications can be traced in the West for a long time, what is the Facebook** Messenger application, separate from the social network Facebook** worth. The result of this is the creation of a niche for competition (Telegram, Snapchat and others), because it is easier for companies to compete if it is a separate product that does not have problems with the FAS.

*Recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation.
** Facebook is owned by Meta, a company recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation.
*** Instagram is owned by Meta, a company recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation.
**** Messenger belongs to the Meta company, which is recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation.

Russian UX

Let's finally start looking at domestic UX. While reading the article, you might have noticed a certain correlation with the designs of each side. In fact, that's true, we've been using solutions from each side for a long time, adapting everything to our market. We take the visuals and basic UX from the West, but have been developing super apps inside the country for many years.

VK

The first company that decided to introduce mini-services inside the application was VK, their mini-apps are still working and are slowly developing. It all started back in 2018, when the first tapalka with VK coin appeared, which was played by 10 million users, and individual VK services began to integrate, for example, CityMobil for calling a taxi.

Now VK mini-apps have expanded much more than in 2018, now with the help of mini-apps you can buy goods on AliExpress, use VK dating service, count steps and compete with friends, buy tickets and much more.

Yandex

The trend for super apps in our country is not abating. Yandex has become the main driver of super apps in the Russian Federation, having renamed Yandex Taxi to Yandex GO many years ago. Now in the Yandex GO application you can interact with almost all of Yandex's main services, from ordering a taxi, for which the application was originally created, to ordering food, buying airline tickets, equipment and much more.

Just recently, an update was released that expands the functionality of the application and adds new services. So far, this is the closest analogue of Chinese superapps in Russia, but work is still underway. For example, you can add payment by QR code to the GO application or enter other financial transactions there, since Yandex Bank exists.

I would also like to note that the transition to Yandex services is available both on the main page of the search engine, when you click on a line, and in many other services.

T-Bank (Tinkoff Bank)

The financial sector of the Russian Federation is one of the most developed in the world, so superapps do not bypass banks. For example, I will consider Tinkoff Bank, which has long been promoting its “City”, where you can find both payment for fuel and a poster or airline tickets. In fact, superapps often repeat each other in functionality (Products, fuel, tickets, each integrates everything that it owns or cooperates with, these are just the main things that people need).

Unfortunately, this is an old version of the application, but the idea is the same. Do not forget about other banks, the same Sber is not inferior to the same Yandex in terms of the number of businesses, but almost nothing is integrated into their banking, neither Sber Sound, nor the same Megamarket. This is most likely due to the target audience, Sber is too big a bank and includes too many adults to load the interface even more.

Alfa Bank is promoting “Showcase”, the same set of markets and more. In general, it is the banking sector, in my opinion, that will become Yandex's main competitor in the superapp race; these forces will build the image of bigtech companies and their types of business.

Ozone

As for marketplaces, it’s a bit of a stretch, but Ozon can still be considered a super app with their large navigation bar, separate services for buying clothes, food, and their Ozon Bank.

In fact, although the division does exist, these services can generally be considered as add-ons or related mini-services. Of course, having your own banking is a big step, however, the development of banking in marketplaces is a slightly different topic, there are completely different aspirations, at least for now.

Path and Conclusion

Design in Russia is different. It can be bad, good, beautiful or terrible, but it is ours and it surrounds us. Having analyzed where digital design began and who set the trends, it is not surprising that we have a strong influence of Western design. At the same time, we are very good at combining the Western and Asian, we are a fairly flexible culture in this regard, since we are connected to both parts of the world both geographically and historically/politically.

As for Bigtechs in Russia, they set a new vector for the development of large corporations, owning a huge number of businesses in various areas, integrating them with each other. This trend has developed only in our country and for our market. If you look at large companies in the US, their products are aimed at the world and must comply with the laws of many countries, while in Russia, with our import substitution, development occurs in many areas, niches are not occupied, since foreign competitors are not serious competitors from the point of view of business in the Russian Federation. And the laws that have to be observed are mainly Russian.

The main driver of super apps and service integration at the moment is Yandex. However, in the near future, banks can and are already breaking out to the leading positions, having huge opportunities, large teams and finances, as well as long-established banking, using all this they can afford to launch new products and continuously support existing ones. The same Sber is investing in dozens of areas, starting from the same banking and megamarket and ending with Sber Sound and Sber Autotech.

We will continue to see familiar projects that are not related to large companies, but most important and core products are BigTech products. In the future, competition between ecosystems, rather than individual products, will become increasingly evident. In turn, important products will necessarily have services of a specific ecosystem within them. While we are used to seeing a struggle between ecosystems in the smartphone and technology market, in Russia, competition between global systems is expected at the level of our country. We will keep an eye on this.

That's all

Thank you for reading the material! You can leave a comment, discuss my opinion about the development of superapps in our country, and also subscribe to my telegram channel about design UXCreep.