UX in Real Life: What I learned from Living in Japan
Summarize of real-life UX examples I’ve learned during 2 years in Japan.
Disclaimer: I was born and raised in Thailand for the whole of my life. Some cases might seem normal to you or you might even found better solutions in your country, please feel free to share!
“Omotenashi”, A Japanese mindset of hospitality, is one of the famous features when we talk about Japan. The heartfelt way they serve customers with care and beyond expectation is a unique experiment you can enjoy here. To me, Omotenashi isn’t limited to cultural experiences but the idea is embedded as a core for all products and services. That’s why many things here could serve the best experience for users.
Scenario 1: Train
The main public transportation in Japan. Further than basic designs such as coin slot that user can pour all coins at once, touch-to-charge supported machine for users who find the difficulty of pulling their IC card out of the case, and ticket gate that accept both single and multiple tickets in various direction. Here are the highlights I’d like to show you:
The first one is floor marks that indicate a standing area. The striped blue line warns users not to block the way from people who walk down the stair and making a turn. Orange and red blocks are part of total 9 queue blocks for massive amount of users during rush hour: people in 3 blue blocks get in the train first, followed by those in the orange, and red respectively. Not just only for queuing, floor marks in some stations can also be used for indicating special cars such as lady only or reserved car (and I swear I saw “moderate air condition car” once). And of course, tactile paving all along the station for visually impaired users.
The second one is my most favorite, the screen inside the train’s car. Not just only the route display with connected lines information, they also show the basic map of the station so users can design whether to turn left or right to their destination right after they walked out of the car.
The third one is the trash bin, as we need to separate trash in Japan. The input of trash bin are varied depends on its type: circle shape for bottles and cans, a thin rectangle for papers and magazines, ana d large rectangle for other burnable garbage. Shape design helps user to understand the difference from a quick glance and can also help prevent putting incorrectly.
Scenario 2: Product
My friend once talked about Japanese product design as “If you found it’s difficult to open, you did it the wrong way”. For me, product design here isn’t made for a beautiful look and easy to open only but they also cared for the experience of using it too. Here are highlights for this topic:
The first one is a very classic fast food for Japanese people, Onigiri or rice balls. It’s a bit difficult to open for the first time as you need to pull the cover carefully so the seaweed can stay its shape. The idea behind this design is an inner plastic layer that separates seaweed from the rice to preserve its crispy taste. User need only 3 steps to open it, and they don’t need to wrap the seaweed themselves ;)
The second one I mostly found in the single-time-use sauce or salad dressing. This plastic cup doesn’t mean to be peel yet to be folded and squeezed so the user doesn’t need to directly touch the sauce. I really appreciate this idea as it’s very easy to use with no mess behind.
The third one is only a simple water bottle but what I like is that the cap is built to be connected to the bottle permanently. I don’t need to hold the cap while drinking or search for it when it got lost, it just always be there!
As you can see from 3 samples above, all products come with picture instruction on how to open or use it. This is another good UX that the company show their care toward first-time users.
Scenario 3: Restaurant
There are so many stories I could tell about restaurant experience in Japan, they are so focused on caring customers and sometimes even beyond your imagination.
First thing first, Japanese culture is still dominant by male. Female isn’t expected to eat alone in a “manly” restaurant such as ramen or beef bowl as she was meant to eat a light meal and chill in the cafe instead. My friend told me that “Ootoya”, famous homestyle Japanese food franchise, which mainly aims for female customers. They always set the location of the restaurant on the second floor so girls can eat as much as they like without worrying about being watched by people walking pass by.
As a woman who lives alone and often dines alone too, most of the time I got treated the same way as Ootoya’s idea. The staff always seek for the most separated seat for me like they’d like to hide me from others’ eyesight. No matter it’s table or counter bar seat, the seat next to me is always the last seat that will be filled.
That story is more to the service part? Let me show you the highlighted designs I collected then:
For the first one, I’d like you to focus on the “Oshibori”, a wet towel (for this picture, it’s in the plastic package). Japanese people always promote health care of washing hand before any meal. That’s why you can find this wet towel every time you went to the restaurant, or even got it when you bought food from a convenience store. A better restaurant will serve the Oshiburi on the container at various temperatures according to the weather: hot towel in winter and cold towel in summer. This way customer can clean their hands before eating without leaving their seat.
The second one is a very convenient one. No more searching for the staff’s eyes and when-it-will-end hand raising, just pushing the button on the left side and the staff will come to you. On the right side is a stand for the bill which can both tell that you’ve got all orders already and you’re still not on checked until you grab it and go to pay at the cashier in front of the restaurant. It’s a convenient way for staff to check the status from distance.
The third one is what I found in the science museum that aims for kids. A little space below is a cute idea that young customers can grab their food directly from the staff. Too bad I couldn’t see the actual use scenario the time I went there.
In extra, another thing I like is the basket that many restaurants provide for the customer to store their bag without directly put it on the floor. Sorry that I forgot to take a photo of it though.
Scenario 4: Toilet
An important place that everyone needs to visit lol. I won’t talk about the famous washlet with various sensors and buttons as you might already know. Thus, there’re still many things that are well-designed for the customers.
The first one is the toilet papers. Most of the toilet I found has at least 2 rolls, why need to worry about a shortage of papers when you already have another one in spare? Also, little space over the papers is perfectly fit for mobile phone and wallet as a customer might hold in their hand or need to pull it out of their trousers pocket. Further than this place, there is always a hanger on the door and extra space behind the toilet for other belongings.
The second one a cloth-changing stand, user can pull the board down and step on it to change so the cloth won’t directly touch the dirty floor. It is also a baby holder as a mother can keep an eye on her child even in her private time. In addition, from time to time I could see other machines near the hand washing stand, for example, cotton pack for makeup adjustment, a machine for a mouthwash with a paper cup, etc. It’s kinda fun to check what they’d provided in the toilet.
The third one is a very important thing for women, a mirror! You don’t need to bend over the sink or block the way of others who came to wash their hands, an extra area with mirror and belongings space are always there for you to do the makeup. In some places, there are even seats and bright lights for better makeup support. In the picture above, the space is quite small so they tilt the mirror for little space to place item (and also can prevent accidental eye met with the person next to you) with the area below for bigger belongings. The final thing is, when you’re leaving the room, there’s always a full-body mirror for the final check.
That’s all for the summarize! I’m so much fun with this and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. Note that there’re still many UX ideas and designs out there that I didn’t mention about, I really recommend you to visit here once and have fun observing around ;)
