世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently published the results of some research conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into Internet Explorer v7.0. 330 members of their online monitor group employed in private industry were interviewed by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. Thanks to Gen Kanai at Mozilla Japan for prompting me to publish it!

Demographics

Of the 330 in the sample, 82.7% were male, 13.6% in their twenties, 4.0% in their thirties, 30.9% in their forties, 7.3% in their fifties, and 1.2% in their sixties.

As an Opera user myself, I am not overly impressed by Internet Explorer 7, and never use it except for the corporate internet (which actually doesn’t yet officially support version 7, and in fact I’m not supposed to have upgraded, but that’s another story!) and Windows Update.

It’s difficult to know how to interpret the degree of satisfaction in Q1SQ2. Are people comparing it with the previous version and just rating the new features, or are they considering the whole package?
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research towards the end of February investigating the subject of opinions about mobile phone weight and size. Note for reference that a survey last year found that the most popular by far form factor for phones was the clamshell.

Demographics

Of the 330 people from JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor pool who completed the survey, 51.2% were male, 25.8% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

When I pick up a typical Japanese model, to me there just seems to be nothing but a skeleton there. Nothing to hold on to, and I am afraid to squeeze too hard in case they break. I worry too about living with them, perhaps they are all looks and no substance. I feel the same way about modile phones too.

Seriously, I do find most of the DoCoMo 900 series too chunky, but I’m happy with my standard-sized Panasonic P702iD clamsheel. Also note that there are three news phones claiming to be the thinnest in the world, given certain qualifications: the DoCoMo N703iμ and P703iμ are both 11.4mm thick clamshells, and the SoftBank 708SC is an 8.4mm candybar. In addition, the positively obese Motorola MOTORAZR, at 14.9mm, is being promoted quite heavily in Japan.
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently published the results of a survey conducted amongst a slightly different population from usual, that of elementary school children, on the subject of what they do after school. The fieldwork was conducted over two weeks from the 24th of October to the 7th of November last year, with respondents gathered via a public web-based survey from users of the primary school children-targeted portal site kids goo. There is no mention of parental involvement in the data collection. I presented another survey last year on a similar topic, but that time it was the parents interviewed regarding their children and their extra-curricular lessons.

Demographics

1,500 children completed the survey successfully. 60.1% were girls, 2.9% were in the first year of elementary school (age 6 or 7), 5.5% in second year, 13.7% in third year, 22.9% in forth year, 27.7% in fifth year, and 27.4% in sixth year.

The most surprising thing to me is probably Q2, with not more than 3% met at the school gates by their parents. This to me is a great figure, as it indicates the relative low level of parental paranoia in the country, and of course the lack of cars associated with the school run is good for the environment.
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the matter of university lectures being made publicly available, or OpenCourseWare to use the term coined to describe this phemonenom, pioneered in the USA by MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. In Japan there is the Japan Opencourseware Consortium, JOCW, based at Keio University, who have their own OpenCourseWare, including a small English section.

Demographics

The fieldwork was conducted between the 13th and 19th of December last year, with 1,050 people from their monitor group successfully completing a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, 19.8% in their teens, 20.1% in their twenties, 19.5% in their thirties, 20.2% in their forties, and 20.4% aged fifty or older. Educationally, 6.1% had only completed middle school (although some of the teenage sample may not have finished high school yet), 26.8% graduated from high school, 8.8% vocational schools, 1.6% 高専 college (this type of college is seems to be a variant of vocational schooling?), 11.3% junior (two-year) college, 26.2% university arts course, 13.1% university science, 1.6% university medical or pharmacy, 3.4% post-graduate or business schools, 0.5% overseas university or post-graduate, and 0.6% other.
Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into how people rate the company they work for. The fieldwork was conducted on the 14th of February, with 330 people from their online monitor group successfully completing a private internet-based questionnaire. It’s probably useful to cross-reference this with my recent translation of a survey on middle-age job opportunities.

Demographics

The 330 people were all employed in private industry, with an overwhelming 95.5% male. All of the sample was aged 30 or older, with 35.8% in their thirties, 52.7% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 0.9% in their sixties.

My degree of satisfaction (or otherwise, as the case may be) with my employer is documented to some extent in my weekly newsletter, available by either entering your email address in the box below, or by visiting the newsletter archives on Google. Only recently have I started to put some effort into resolving matters, but I am seeing possible signs that something positive may happen.

Subscribe to 世論 What Japan Thinks newsletter

Read the rest of this entry »

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted on the 21st of February by JR Tokai Express Research into Apple’s new iPhone mobile phone.

Demographics

330 people from their monitor group employed in public and private enterprises completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 79.4% were male, 17.3% in their twenties, 45.8% in their thirties, 29.4% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 0.9% in their sixties.

Note that most of the features in the iPhone are already available in other phones, and even the Maps feature mentioned in Q2 is surpassed by existing applications like NaviTime (US version). There is also the question of how the touch-screen would work with Japanese input – would they just emulate the existing keypad entry, or have they a novel idea for that?
Read the rest of this entry »

MyVoice recently reported on the results of a survey into the matter of mobile phones. It may be of interest to cross-reference with yesterday’s translation of a similarly-themed MyVoice survey into mobile phone service provider image.

Demographics

13,252 people from MyVoice’s internet community answered the questionnaire between the 1st and 5th of February. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

The two main problems I find with mobile phones are first, even if you stay with the same service provider and the same mobile phone maker, even just a minor model upgrade can mean that the internal software is completely rewritten, and one needs to relearn the quirks of the new email system or character input methods. Second, new models sometimes see not just a feature rewrite, but a degradation in usability. For example, my old phone allowed me to check what the particular ring tone setting were for each contact group in my phone book; now I cannot. I know from working with other projects that usability sadly seems to come pretty low down in the pecking order when designing software.
Read the rest of this entry »

MyVoice recently published the results of its 6th annual mobile phone service provider image survey. Note that I have previously translated the 5th annual survey.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of February they interviewed 13,352 people from their onlione monitor community: 54% of the respondents were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 41% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

The results here are pretty much in line with what even just the casual observer would conclude about the Japanese mobile phone market, although I would have thought that perhaps as Hollywood stars Brad and Cameron would have had a positive impact on SoftBank’s image, but their television commercials promote talking on the phone, ignoring the fact that most people email, and perhaps news of the rumoured three million dollars salary Cameron Diaz received for one six-hour shoot has soured the general public towards Masayoshi Son’s company.
Read the rest of this entry »

Just as a bit of fun, here’s a pair of silly surveys from goo Ranking, one from women and one from men on what’s the biggest turn-offs when being invited back for coffee. The fieldwork was conducted over three days in the middle of January, but no further demographic information is available.

Note that due to differences in social mores, and of course the ready availability of alternatives, visiting one’s girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s flat comes much later in a relationship than compared to the West, I believe.

Number 14 for women, not putting eggs in the fridge, seems rather out of place! It’s also interesting to see how what women look for in a man’s home differs from what men look for in a woman’s place.
Read the rest of this entry »

DIMSDRIVE Research recently released the results of their research into the subject of Social Networking Services (SNS). Between the 24th of January and the first of February 4,489 members of their internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire.

Demographics

55.5% of the sample was female, 1.0% were in their teens, 16.7% in their twenties, 37.5% in their thirties, 28.8% in their forties, 11.6% in their fifties, and 4.4% aged sixty or older. Note that were just 11 boys and 32 girls in the teenage group, so I will not mention them in the main text as the groups are too small to draw any statistical conclusions from. There were also just 46 women over sixty, also just slightly too small.

Last time I translated a survey on mixi I did ask, and then received, an invitation, but I must report that it has sat in my inbox gathering dust ever since then. This blog occasionally gets linked from within mixi, so I’m curious to find out who is doing it, but I don’t know if I really have the time to dive head-first into the site. Perhaps I’ll just be one of the 15.9% in Q3 who barely log in at all?
Read the rest of this entry »