articles

A Lesson in Usability from My 4-Year-Old Son One afternoon, my 4-year-old son pointed at the TV remote and asked, “How do I make it louder?” I told him, “Just press the volume button.” But instead of pressing it, he looked at the remote in confusion:“What’s ‘volume’? Which one is that?” In that moment, I […]

Introduction: Japan’s Unique Mobility Needs Hidden in Plain Sight  Global automotive trends are racing ahead—electrification, autonomous driving, connected cars. Japan is keeping up technically, but if you glance at the country’s best-selling vehicles, something seems… off. Among all this cutting-edge progress, why are Japan’s streets dominated by boxy, ultra-compact vehicles called “kei cars”?  In 2024, […]

As the importance of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion has increased in recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on accessibility. Designing products and services that are easy for everyone to use is not only socially responsible, but essential to a company’s sustainability.   In UX research, directly incorporating the voices of people with disabilities is […]

Introduction  As UX researchers, we depend on real people to understand their needs, frustrations, and emotional journeys.  But what if we could simulate those people instead?  With generative AI evolving so quickly, there’s been growing interest in using “synthetic users”, meaning AI-generated personas that respond to research prompts as if they were real. These virtual […]

As generative AI tools like ChatGPT redefine how we interact with machines, it’s more important than ever to ask: Are the foundational principles of UX in AI still relevant? And how should they evolve?  That question sits at the heart of this article.  AI’s Vicious Cycle  Even at its early stages, AI’s potential capability has […]

Japan has a long history of taking ideas from other cultures and refining them into something uniquely Japanese. Toilets are no exception. They’ve been transformed into high-tech marvels, complete with heated seats, bidets, dryers, self-cleaning functions, sound masking, all integrated into a compact Washlet.   But here’s the twist. For something so advanced, there are countless […]

Did you know that Rock, Paper, Scissors (yes, that universal game we all played as kids), actually comes from Japan?  In Japanese, it’s called jan-ken, and while the basic rules are the same, its role in everyday life is far more embedded in the culture than in most Western countries. In Japan, jan-ken isn’t just […]

When global teams talk about innovation, the spotlight often falls on tech giants or visionary designers. But in Japan, some of the most thoughtful, compelling lessons in design come from places no bigger than a walk-in closet.  Urban apartments in cities like Tokyo or Osaka are famously compact. A single resident might live comfortably in […]

For researchers aiming to understand users in their natural environment, home visits are often considered the gold standard. They promise a window into daily routines, spatial habits, and unspoken needs that remote interviews or surveys might miss. However in Japan, this method presents a fascinating paradox: the closer you get to the user, the more […]

As Human Factors Engineering (HFE), commonly referred to as Usability Engineering (UE) in Japan and the EU, becomes a core pillar of safe and effective medical device design worldwide, international manufacturers may find themselves asking, “How is usability evaluated in Japan?”  In the US, the FDA requires a formal HFE/UE report* for most Class II […]