Japan: Google's Real-Life Lab

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For instance, Google has found that letting users choose a default neighborhood can make their search queries faster. And while Americans raved when Google launched a mobile version of maps last August, the Japanese panned it for being too slow and hard to navigate. So maps now load faster and feature arrows along each side that make it easier to change the map view. Says software engineer Ken Wakasa: "People's expectations are very high here compared to other regions. That's why we get good feedback."

Another lesson: The information people are looking for can change with the season or news events. Last July, the mobile search site was flooded with queries immediately after strong earthquakes rattled northern Japan, so the company now automatically posts links to news sites when quakes strike. And during the yearend holidays, when Japanese send New Year's greeting cards, Google makes postal code data a cinch to find. "There's a lot of trial and error," says Tokusei. "I'm always thinking to myself: There's gotta be a better way to do this.'"

The ultimate test is whether a service helps users find what they're looking for in the smallest possible number of clicks. That's how Tokusei's team decided to do away with the options for searching images, news, shopping, and other services that PC users see on Google. Data showed that when people search for TV shows, pro athletes, Hollywood stars, or pop singers, they're often looking for photos. Now when you do a Google mobile search for Seattle Mariner outfielder Ichiro Suzuki it assumes you might be interested in images, so they appear automatically.

Tokusei hopes to make getting information on a phone nearly as easy as on a PC. The biggest hurdle: the complexity of handsets. Instead of just two dominant operating systems, as with PCs, there are hundreds of versions of phone software. And some models sport buttons that let users jump around a Web page, while others rely on a jog dial or a pointer like a mouse. "There will always be more you can do on a desktop PC than you can on a mobile device," says Tokusei. "But that's part of what makes this job interesting."

Hall is BusinessWeek's technology correspondent in Tokyo .