Comment by atoav

When I traveled to Japan I realized that many of their vending machine interfaces are totally in the style of literally any Nintendo game UI I ever played: a bit cute, a bit whimsical, but ultimately very easy to read and fun to use.

But the biggest differentiator in my eyes was sound. Where in Europe most non-broken vending machines are silent apart from the noise they make when the product comes out, in Japan every action, every button, and every step produces a host of sounds, often the machine literally talks to you.

Of course machines with sounds exist here as well, but it is often "just" a layer that has been added to improve accessible with no considerations given to the quality and aesthetics of the sounds. The Japanese machines I interacted with all had their very own consistent character.