If the phrase “my favorite mortician” is one that you cannot relate to, I completely understand. I’m going to ask that you trust me and stick around for a bit, though.
One of the most common bits of advice I have heard in the UX/UI/Product Design world is to write things to get your name out there. Post things that people can repost. So, I’ve been watching as article upon article shows up in my LinkedIn Feed or Medium alerts. It has frequently been a sea of reworded and reprocessed bits on the top tools to use, standard design tips, an occasional case study, and a peppering of “UX is Dead!” Some of them are wonderful and very helpful, I would never want to indicate otherwise, they just aren’t….me. It’s not a voice that I have. I love to write, but what place does my voice have in these feeds? What can I say that doesn’t just add to the repeating of the top 40 greatest hits?
Will my voice be too weird?
It weighed on me.
I continued to push that action item to the following week every week.
On the topic of voices, I should note that I tend to always be listening to something while working. Podcasts have been my go-to for listening to while I work on design projects for as long as I can remember but if I have to concentrate on words, then it’s a music playlist that’s going. That’s just how my brain works. This year I decided to up my reading game. Returning to a pastime consistently that I have long loved was a bit of self-care for me. It also reminded me that audiobooks exist. So, I have swapped out some podcasts for an audiobook here and there.
Last week, while I was finalizing a UI Kit for an app that I am head of UX for, I found myself listening to Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death.
Long before we launched the podcast Bones & Bobbins, a historical podcast that delves into creepy, crafty, true crimey, and odd little curiosities, I have been a member of the Order of the Good Death and a fan of Caitlin Doughty’s. Caitlin is, as you may have guessed, my favorite mortician. In 2011, she founded the death acceptance organization, Order of the Good Death, whose mission is to build a meaningful, eco-friendly, and equitable end of life. She also popularized the term “death positive.” All of this boils down to believing that cultural censorship of death and dying does more harm than good, that open discussions about death should be accepted as a natural human curiosity, that families should have full rights to care for the bodies of their loved ones without intervention from funeral businesses, and that end of life care should be diversified and performed in ways that cause less damage to the environment than our current practices. It also strongly encourages participants to speak to their families about their own end-of-life wishes, even if they are young and healthy, encourages people to express their feelings about death through art, and is critical of the commercialized funeral industry
In short- destigmatizing death.
Honestly, I was surprised that I had found a book of hers that I hadn’t read yet.
As I was eyeball deep in creating components for multiple atomic elements, her voice took me around the world one funeral at a time. It was when she landed in Japan that something just clicked. I don’t know if it was my love of Japan (I took 7 years of the language in High School and college and am still in touch with my High School sensei), my fondness of Buddhism, or what exactly sparked it. But my mind immediately drew a connection to her words and UX Design. My brain went positively giddy.
The combination of the things I have loved most of my life seemed to just light the way. In addition to my favorite mortician, Japan, and Buddhism, I also heard the voice of my elementary school art teacher, Mr. Pierce quoting El Greco “Art is everywhere you look for it”, my college Color Theory professor quoting Saul Bass repeatedly- “Design is thinking made visual’, and my old boss, Steve “Everything that exists has a design.”
This all doesn’t just apply to graphic design or fine art. This absolutely applies to UX/UI/Product Design.
I found where my voice lies. I will be telling the tales of user-centered designs out in the wild. Tales of designs whose thoughts may have not yet been interpreted as being user-centered. Little bitty adventures of UX in the wild. I call them Side Quests.
Starting with a Buddhist burial temple.
You did read that correctly.
Fighting the urge to fully knowledge dump here was tough. I will be making a longer version of this section available for those who may like a good deep dive into this topic. For now, I will attempt to keep it brief.
In Japan, an overwhelming majority of the population chooses cremation, with (depending on the resource) roughly 99% of all funerals involving this practice. Shinto and Buddhist traditions, the most popular Japanese religious practices, both favor cremation. Buddhism, in particular, regards cremation as a way to purify the body and facilitate the soul’s journey to the afterlife. Additionally, Japan’s limited land space and high population density make cremation a more practical and economical choice compared to burial. Government regulations and public policies also support cremation due to its environmental benefits and efficiency in managing remains. So, a combination of religious beliefs, cultural practices, and practical considerations contribute to the near-universal preference for cremation in Japan.
When it comes to death, how the body is processed is really only part of it, though. How the person and their remains are honored or remembered afterward holds as much, or even more, importance to various cultures and religions. Among the vast majority, having a physical place to visit your loved one after they have passed on, whether to leave offerings, burn incense, celebrate, or reflect quietly, is essential.
The Buddhists, having long been advocates for cremation, were the first to introduce the columbarium, a place for the storage of urns holding cremated remains. In Japanese the term used is nokotsudo, which translates to “bone receiving hall.” That term will make more sense if you check out the longer version of this. Originally built in Ancient Asia, these structures were very elaborate and patterned after traditional Buddhist temples. Today, a nokotsudo is either attached to a Buddhist temple or a cemetery. These structures allow those who knew the deceased to visit for traditional memorials.
This brings me to the Koukokuji Buddhist temple in Tokyo and Yajima Taijun, the temple’s jushoku (meaning head priest or monk.) When Koukokuji reached its capacity, Yajima was left with a choice. Instead of investing in traditional cemetery space, in 2014, he built the Ruriden columbarium.
Given I just mentioned that columbariums are far from a new idea, this may not seem like a big deal. Ruriden may have started out like the others with its temple-esque exterior, but Yajima has proven to be quite the UX Designer. What Ruriden is now took a couple of years to evolve to and it ended up sparking a movement of sorts.
When you walk through the doors into the hexagon building, you are immediately surrounded by over 2000 crystal Buddhas- each one representing the remains behind it and each one luminous. When someone comes to visit Ruriden, they type in the name of the deceased or pull out a smart card like the ones used on Tokyo’s subway with a chip in it. After the code or card is used at the entrance, every Buddha in there lights up blue, except for one. The one that they are there to visit shines a bright white.
According to Yajima, ”Buddhism has always been state-of-the-art. It is quite natural to use technology alongside Buddhism. I see no conflict at all.”
He also went on to tell Caitlin, “All of this evolved. For example, we started with a touchpad, where you type in your family member’s name. One day I saw a very old woman struggling to type a name in, so that’s when we got the smart cards. She just had to tap the card and can immediately find her dead person!”
From her book ‘Yajima headed back to the keypad controller and instructed us to stand in the center of the room. “The autumn scene!” he announced, and the formation of Buddhas turned yellow and brown with shifting red patches, like piles of freshly fallen leaves. “Winter scene!” and the Buddhas turned to snowdrifts of light blue and white. “Shooting star!” and the Buddhas turned purple as white spots jumped from Buddha to Buddha, like a stop-motion animation of the night sky.’
Instead of endless rows of granite walls, where ashes reside behind the etched names of the dead, Yajima had a vision. “The afterlife of Buddhism is filled with treasures and light,” he said. In designing Ruriden, Yajima was creating “an afterlife along the path of Buddha.”
When Caitlin asked Yajima why he had designed Ruriden the way he did, his response was impassioned. “We had to act, we had to do something. Japan has fewer children. Japanese people are living longer. The family is supposed to look after your grave, but we don’t have enough people to look after everyone’s grave. We had to do something for those people left behind.”
When Yajima built Ruriden, he “thought of the man who doesn’t have any children and says, ‘What will I do, who will pray for me?’ “
Each morning, Yajima enters Ruriden and punches in the day’s date. Buddhas then glowing yellow represent those who had died on that day. Yajima then lights incense and prays for them. He remembers them, even if there is no family left to do so. For an elderly man or woman with no remaining family, the glowing Buddhas at Ruriden will act as their afterlife community.
Yajima may be a powerful priest, but he is also a designer. “When I pray, I also think about creating. How do we create something new, filled with dazzling light? How do we create new Buddhas?”
For him, the act of prayer is essential to creativity. “Every time I pray, the different ideas pop up. . . . I’m not a man who sits at a desk to create a plan. It’s all while I’m praying.”
“What if Ruriden fills up with ashes?,” Caitlin asked him. “If it fills up then I will consider a second or third.” Yajima smiled. “I’m already thinking of them.”
As designers, we have focused on websites, apps, and digital products and how to make them accessible. Yajima took that and applied it to life. He saw a pain point, needing more space for remains that still allowed proper honoring. He then created a solution and continues to adapt it as needed to make sure all can access the remains of their loved ones.
After Ruriden opened, many took his lead and tried to replicate or create new solutions of their own, including designs for a floating columbarium (think cremation cruise ship, but respectful) proposed for off the coast of Hong Kong.
When we begin to look around and find pain points that exist in life and design solutions to them that are accessible to everyone, this world will truly be a better place. Until then, I’m going to continue to find examples and create my own as I wander along these Side Quests.