Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Raphael Hodé

Unexpected ways living in Japan made me a better designer.

Kinshicho — my home for the past 3 years

I can’t believe it’s already been three years since I quit my job, packed my stuff and got that plane ticket to Japan. Not for vacations this time. But for real.

I remember how frightened I was, thinking that maybe changing region after only a few years of work experience could possibly “slow me down”. Especially moving to a market that isn’t necessarily the most advanced in my profession.

Natural control freak, I didn’t leave unprepared. Quite the opposite. Before taking the plunge, I did my homework, emailing and Skyping a fair amount of foreigners living in Japan.

I studied the market, scoped the opportunities. And it was tight. The possibility for a non-Japanese-speaking young professional to find a fulfilling design position in Tokyo was mince.

“It’s not impossible” some told me. “But you will have to be lucky, patient and willing to compromise.”

Not exactly the encouraging words I was hoping for!

Three years passed and I now live a perfectly fulfilling life in Tokyo. Not only the everyday in this amazing city is beyond my expectations (Tokyo is said to be one of the cities with the best quality of life), but from a purely professional perspective, the very fact that I don’t live in my own culture is contributing to making me a better designer, in a way that I could never have anticipated.

Inspiration in the everyday

In his TED Talk “The first secret of design is noticing” Tony Fadell, former Apple designer and founder of Nest, emphasizes the importance for designers to look closely at the mundane. According to Fadell, the greatest design inspiration comes from the small things in the everyday.

Living in a culture that is so fundamentally different from the one I was raised in, I don’t have to try hard. The mundane is simply fascinating. Everything in the surroundings, from the shapes of houses, the design of traffic signs, to the way people interact with each other, seems in a way different, and inspiring.

Naturally, the mind starts wandering. Why do people sleep in the middle of the day? Why is every official information communicated with a cute-ish character? Why are bicycles riding on the sidewalk? Why do people keep on saying “sorry” instead of “thank you”? Why are they so quiet during the day and so loud passed the doors of the izakaya?

After three years in Japan, some of those questions found answers. Most didn’t. Like an onion, the Japanese culture is a succession of layers you peal infinitely, each one revealing the next. This habit of observing and questioning the world around me didn’t stop. If anything, my desire to understand deeper this culture, to uncover the next layer, is just getting stronger and stronger.

It became a habit that helps me while designing. When most people take the world around them for granted, it’s the designers job to inquire the rational, cultural, emotional and social drivers behind people’s behavior. Only by questioning what people do can you uncover opportunities to change it. And like the Japanese culture, human behaviors are a maze where every answer leads to yet anther set of questions.

Questioning assumptions

I used to think that a good designer is one that knows stuff. Someone that perfected technical skills, mastered all the tools, knew all about design history and theory.

Of course to a certain extend this is true. “You need to know the rules before breaking the rules” they would say. But relying too heavily on patterns, knowledge and experience, on the contrary, can quickly become an excuse for not thinking really about the problems you’re facing.

When designing, it’s a healthy habit to question your thinking and your assumptions.

If I learned one thing by living in Japan, is that I don’t know much. All the things I took for granted, I’m starting to question them. All my cultural references and best practices, gone. I don’t need to pretend that I don’t know; I really don’t.

It forces me to listen, more than I naturally want to. To rely on the research data more than on my intuition. To genuinely collaborate with other designers who most likely understand what the heck is going on much more than I do.

Comfortable with the uncomfortable

With the pretty pictures of landscapes and exotic food also comes a fair amount of discomfort. Not understanding what’s going on around you. Not knowing the social norm. Not being able to complete basic tasks on your own (go ahead and check yourself in at the hospital when you can’t read the form).

Those countless awkward moments when you order the chef’s recommendation because you can’t read the menu and end up with an entire plate of raw chicken… When you’re spending your Friday evening singing karaoke with a bunch of strangers twice your age. When you have to get naked in front of colleagues to dive into an onsen. When in so many occasions, facing a client, a store staff, a doctor, you simply feel lost and powerless and your only option is to let go and hope for the best.

After a while, things tend to get better. Eventually, picking up basic communication skills makes the day-to-day a bit smoother.

But most importantly, I think I simply started to accept the discomfort. I’m starting to be ok with not being in control. Ok not fully understanding what’s happening around me. Ok with trying things that are way beyond my definition of normal.

Getting out of our natural comfort zone is something designers need to be comfortable with. Whether it’s trying a new prototyping tool, applying a new visual style or hop on a new project on an unfamiliar subject, we’re forced to dealing with unknown and new things on a daily basis.

The design process is sometimes described as a method to “navigate uncertainty” — a saying I find also very suitable to describe my gaijin life in Tokyo.

Looking back at my anxious self three years ago, debating wether or not the thrill of living abroad was worth the price of putting aside proper professional growth — I’m grateful that I didn’t let fear and conformism get in the way of such an enriching experience.

Designing far from home was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Designing far from home

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