Having born in Hong Kong and raised in America, I am fully immersed in the Western digital culture, using Tiktok, Instagram, and the like, until recently, I studied abroad in Shenzhen, China, as a student at Georgia Institute of Technology. With Hong Kong being a 20-minute train ride away from Shenzhen, I frequently visit family members and reconnect with my birthplace. As I see beyond the halo of my hometown, the dark truth behind the once heralded “The Pearl of Asia” is the waning influence of Hong Kong in various sectors, like technology to Shenzhen and finance to Singapore. This downturn can be partially attributed to its confused identity as either a global powerhouse or another Chinese city.

Hong Kong’s identity can be explored through their mobile apps and how culture plays a role in development. This article explores the contrasts in mobile app development between Hong Kong, a unique blend of Eastern and Western influences, and the United States, known for its technological innovation and user-centric design. As a product manager, I will be analyzing mobile app development from a product perspective and how its unique blend of Western and Eastern influences fail to meet its users’ needs.

American app design strongly favors minimalism and simplicity. Their focus is on delivering a seamless user experience dedicated to performing specific tasks effectively. This design philosophy aligns with the American preference for straightforward, intuitive interfaces, thus reducing cognitive load and ensuring users can navigate the app with ease and efficiency.

The screenshot below is the forefront page of the primary food discovery app, “Yelp,” utilized in America and although Yelp is primarily a food discovery app, it is also a services discovery app for smaller vendors to promote services. On the main page, we are greeted with a couple of service options, Yelp’s search bar, and recommended articles to read. Users typically type the food and location in the search bar. The condensing of different actions is a common theme in Western mobile app development to introduce a simplistic interface.

Another emphasis on American app development is optimization and performance. This development choice reflects the American values of pragmatism and professionalism by prioritizing functionality over aesthetic embellishments. The Chase mobile app is the perfect embodiment of function over aesthetic. The color scheme throughout the entirety of the app is two toned, opting for grey as the primary and the color of its logo as its secondary color. We are greeted with two accounts, my checking and credit card account, two of which are the most important Chase services to me. Any adjustments to these accounts can be explored further by clicking into them and other services are only a couple of clicks away, another example of functional condensation.

Hong Kong's mobile apps often feature lively designs with vibrant colors and interactive elements, which is reflective of a cultural tendency towards visually stimulating aesthetics. This style caters to a user base that appreciates engaging and dynamic experiences.

The predominate food exploration app in Hong Kong is called “OpenRice” and on the main page, I am bombarded with a cluster of information, ranging from booking restaurants to different articles about sponsorships with different organizations. OpenRice offers a food exploration option, a food news option, then suddenly jumps to global food options and employment discovery services. As much as I enjoy hotpots and buffets, I am skeptical about placing them as the forefront of a food discovery app where my initial instinct isn’t necessarily to find hotpot or buffet. OpenRice does a fantastic job of promoting novel restaurants for its users to discover, but that comes with an initial pain point of usability. Users have to navigate through its complex interface to arrive at their digital destination - a flaw that many Hong Kong mobile applications suffer from.

Mobile apps in Hong Kong often embody a fusion of Eastern and Western design principles, with the interfaces appearing more detailed than typical Western apps. This is reflective of Hong Kong's cultural affinity for comprehensive functionality. The interface tends to provide a broader range of features and the design ethos here is about balancing versatility with user accessibility. Upon the initial page in the screenshot for Hong Kong’s Bank of China (BoC) mobile app, I am greeted with a diverse array of colors. The combination of words split into different rows and the colliding colors can only be best described as archaic and tacky by Western standards. Different functionalities that are account specific, such as money transfer, currency exchange, and paying bills, are displayed at the forefront of the page. As a user of BoC for its checking account services, I never utilize most of the options on the front page.

The cultural differences between the US and Hong Kong speak loudly, rippling its reaches from its inhabitants’ lifestyle to its mobile app development. Although Hong Kong is a city filled with internationals, Cantonese is still the predominate language and app development is primarily catered towards Chinese characters instead of English. Chinese words and phrases can get their meaning across in a lesser amount of space than English, resulting in a sense of clutter and awkwardness when translated to English. As an international city, Hong Kong should develop its apps to seamlessly transition between Chinese and English versions to cater to both its local and international residents.

Another common theme in Hong Kong apps is a sensory overload of services, whether it is relevant to the user or not. I will attribute this to the Hong Kong lifestyle of having one point of centralization where their form of simplicity is going to a single space for a multitude of services. For example, due to limited real estate, I could typically go get my driver’s license, my passport, and my Hong Kong identification card all under the same building. Following a similar structure, Hong Kong users desire a single app that can function as a food discovery, job discovery, and news platform, unlike America where its services are typically succinctly differentiated. Although mobile app centralization eliminates the need for other apps, sacrifices are made in the realm intuitive usability and introduces tacky design.

The stark contrast in mobile app development between Hong Kong and the United States can be explained by culture. Hong Kong apps typically place as much as they can on a page, even if it has of little pertinence to the user. Meanwhile, American app development emphasize on simplicity and focuses development on what is important to the individual. Although the comparison of two apps doesn’t nearly represent the entirety of the Hong Kong mobile applications, the general theme is best classified as tacky and the epitome of not user friendly by Western standards. While Hong Kong claims to be an international city, its mobile app development is anything but. As Hong Kong’s global influence wanes to neighboring cities like Shenzhen and Singapore, Hong Kong should first re-evaluate themselves and determine if they are a Chinese or global city. For everyone living in Hong Kong with experiences abroad, how do you see the future of mobile app development in Hong Kong?