“Fuben-Eki” is a Japanese acronym that stands for “Further benefits of a kind of inconvenience”.
It is a design concept that introduces inconvenience into processes, where the inconvenience would actually be beneficial (forcing you to improve hand-eye coordination, to slow down and notice something, or to improve your memory skills).
Here is a freely accessible video from Japan’s NHK show “Design Talks Plus” about different applications of this unusual concept:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2046153/
Only if the video above is inaccessible, you can watch my own archive copy of the show here:
Professor Kawakami Hiroshi from the video runs this site http://fuben-eki.jp/en/ . It appears that the fuben-eki Facebook page has the latest interviews and writing from his team.
And here is a link to an academic paper introducing the Benefits of Inconvenience [archive PDF link].
Here are some applications of fuben-eki I can think of:
- Slowing down our response to others’ emails. By introducing a delay, we’re giving others an opportunity to solve their own problem. We are also giving ourselves more breathing room. [Time consumption → Encouraging Initiative]
- In a factory: cross-training people, and rotating them through different duties in a day. [Increasing number of operations → System comprehension]
- Reducing credit-card spending using the trick where you freeze the card in a block of ice, and have to wait for it to thaw in order to make an online purchase. [Time consumption → Enhancing awareness]
- Traffic calming techniques like the ones listed here (additionally, there is a technique where you force drivers to be vigilant by intermixing pedestrian & vehicle traffic together without a curb)
[Danger → Enhancing awareness] - Adding obstacles to your workspace in order to increase the amount of physical activity you have in a day. Inspired by Craig Mod’s posting about an 86-year-old cafe proprietor in Japan, who has to squat through a hole in the bar in order to deliver customers’ orders. This means that he squats several dozen times a day and maintains muscle mass. [Increasing amount of operations → Preventing loss of skill]
