What was extremely beneficial for me in the beginning is that I didn't speak a single word of Japanese. But that helped a lot for developing the sensibility for symbols, and how things work if you don't read. A lot of user interfaces, and I'm not talking about screen user interfaces, but very practical user interfaces like toilets, or doors, give you no chance of deciphering how that stuff works if you can’t read. So as time goes by you start developing a second talent in deciphering how things work without reading, which is something we completely forget because we learn to read and write so early here and we learn to deal with our user interfaces as kids, like tying shoes—you don't have to think about that anymore. But if you go into a culture where everything is different and you can't really write, you need to start asking yourself all the time—how does this work?

It's quite a challenge if you can't read Japanese, because you need to first figure out that you can't just sit down and order something. You have to figure out that there is a machine, and you need to figure out which buttons to press, and you need to figure out why you need to press a button in that order, and that sharpens your sense for user interfaces. Seeing the border of things, seeing how things connects, and seeing what is expected for you to do. I've been doing that for a couple of years, until I could read well enough to decipher user interfaces also with the help of text. That was a very important stage for me as a user interface designer, being on the Moon among Martians—so you develop something like a Terminator view—where you wake up naked in a street, and you have this black and red view to decipher everything.

Oliver Reichenstein.