IEEE ICCE 2026 Dubai - A Quick and Dirty Web Audit on the Current State of Japan’s Web Space

There is a common perception among European users that Japanese web design is clunky or “bad.” This raises a core question: is this friction caused by subjective, culturally driven UI preferences, or is it the result of objective technical obsolescence? While I am actively investigating the cultural layout differences in a separate series of studies (including “Influence of User Interface Layout on Usability: A Comparison Between Japanese and European Users“ and “Comparing the Influence of UI Layout on Usability and Performance for Japanese and Austrian Users“), this specific project isolates the technical side of the equation.

To measure the actual state of web infrastructure, I engineered a lightweight web auditing script to test 1,000 Japanese and 1,000 Austrian websites against modern benchmarks, including HTML5, HTTPS, valid domain redirection, responsive design, and WCAG compliance via aXe. The audit proved a significant technical gap: Austrian websites heavily outperformed Japanese sites in overall standard compliance (61.3% vs 36.0%). Yet, the data also challenged Western assumptions by revealing that Japanese sites actually scored higher in accessibility standards.

I published and presented these findings at IEEE’s International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE) 2026, the academic track of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the flagship conference of IEEE CTSoc. While ICCE is traditionally held in conjunction with the CES in Las Vegas, USA, the 2026 event was relocated to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in response to US visa restrictions. Presenting on this uniquely historic international stage underscored the global relevance of this project, which highlights my ability to build automated testing pipelines to uncover the hard data behind cross-cultural UX friction.