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This is a joke, right? It gives the impression those things are super common, and some of that is obvious BS, like needing to know where the front of an IC card is when you do insert it into a machine.

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You're right on some, but I have to say that some of those are indeed common (instead reminding me that these things may not be common outside of Japan). Including: the calculator on ATMs (at least Mitsui-Sumitomo ATMs usually have them), the all-in-one sink with soap, braille on top of cans (just checked my fridge and all alcoholic beverages have it), the paper in bubblegum boxes (always bothers me when I'm in Germany), that most restaurants (including fast food) try to make the dish look like the ad, and reading glasses at city hall.

In the US, I remember when the "wide-mouth can" gimmick became popular; nearly all the soda and beer brands adopted it at exactly the same time, because there's really only one supplier of aluminum-can-tops. I would expect that's true about the braille thing in Japan too.

Contrary: This is the worst designed card for train (Tokaido shinkansen): https://expy.jp/product/card/img/pic_02.jpg

Why? It seems fine to me. I don't even know how a design for a card could be good or bad. It's just a print.

<- true insert direction indicator but small

＞＞＞＞ looks like big insert direction indicator but wrong

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