It was during a cooking class in Osaka that I first heard a Japanese rice cooker chime. Not a beep. Not an alarm. A little melody, almost like an invitation to eat.
I thought: That’s lovely. And then: Why doesn’t a German appliance do that?
Back home, I bought myself a Japanese rice cooker. And in the instruction manual – 11-point font, crystal-clear pictures, clearly produced by someone who wants you to understand the appliance – I made a little discovery: you can choose the melody. There are several to choose from. Someone has put some thought into how the moment feels when the meal is ready.
That’s no coincidence. It’s a philosophy.
Built to function, but not to bring joy
My dishwasher runs at night, as I want clean dishes in the morning. That’s practical, as long as it does its job quietly. When it’s finished, the machine sets off an alarm – seven or eight beeps that feel like they last an eternity. At 3 o’clock in the morning. It can’t be switched off.
My kettle, a device meant to induce calm and serenity, beeps like a smoke alarm when it’s finished.
Both appliances work perfectly from a technical point of view. But nobody asked themselves: how does that feel for the person using them?
Real madness, no joke
Extra 3 ran a feature in its ‘Real Madness’ section about this modern meter. https://www.ardmediathek.de/ video/extra-3/real-madness-new-digital-electricity-meters/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL25kci5kZS8zMDE0ZWJkMC01ZTlmLTRkMzgtOWFjZS1hYThhNzExOGJhOTg?
To read the new digital electricity meter, you had to shine a torch in a specific sequence. Entering the PIN was also done using a torch, with the corresponding risk of making a mistake after several failed attempts.
At the end of the report, the person in charge explains why this isn’t a problem: only 3 per cent of customers are actually interested in their electricity consumption.
Three per cent. So no problem.
The technology worked. The legal requirements were met. But nobody had asked: how does this feel for the customer who wants to check their electricity consumption?
The same pattern in corporate systems
In my consultancy work, I come across this pattern regularly. Pop-up messages that say ‘The change has been made’ and then wait until someone clicks them away. Why don’t they disappear by themselves? Search forms with ten fields that have to be filled in separately. As if Google hadn’t been proving since 1998 that a single search field is enough, provided it’s well designed. Processes that have been optimised for one department but are a daily nuisance for everyone else.
Technically correct. But nothing more.
What Japan does differently
There’s no catchy German word for it. But in Japan, it’s taken for granted that you should anticipate needs before they’re voiced, and design solutions that feel self-explanatory. Not because it’s a rule, but because a product or process is meant to serve people. Always.
You can see this in the instructions for my rice cooker. You can see it in the tune that plays when the rice is ready. And it is missing from an alarming number of corporate systems, processes and IT projects.
The crucial question for every project
When I start a project, I ask a simple question early on: How does it feel to go through this process, for the person who does it every day?
Not for the department that commissioned it. Not for the system that carries it out. For the person.
The answer determines whether a system is accepted or resisted. Whether a process runs smoothly or generates daily workarounds. Whether a roll-out is seen as an improvement or an imposition.
My rice cooker plays a little tune when the meal is ready. It lasts three seconds. But someone decided that this moment should be a happy one.
Three per cent of customers are interested in their electricity consumption. And someone decided that it’s fine for these people to send Morse code signals with their torches.