Following the burst of the economic bubble in 1991, Japan's openness to international user experience (UX) design, the discipline that ensures intuitive and effective human–computer interactions, declined, as a comparative study by Cruz (2023) shows. This article investigates the cultural and psychological roots of that shift through Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.

It examines how the Sakoku isolation policy of the Edo period fostered a resistance to international influence in design, a disposition that resurfaced after the bubble burst and contributed to the period of stagnation that Hayashi and Prescott (2001) called the “lost decades.” In addressing this connection, the study fills a gap in the academic literature linking macroeconomic decline to UX isolationism.

By examining the role of Omotenashi in the global rise of twentieth-century Japanese products and the successful internationalization of South Korean products, the article identifies how UX isolationism can be countered without compromising Japanese cultural heritage. These arguments are grounded in a comparative heuristic analysis, based on Nielsen's principles from Usability Engineering (1993), of the diplomatic websites that serve as the point of contact between foreign users and Japanese institutions, contrasting the Embassy of Japan and the Embassy of the United States in Brazil.

The analysis demonstrates that the Japanese platform departs from international usability standards, reflecting the same inward orientation traced through the country's cultural and economic history. The findings suggest that an internationalized design could become a soft-power tool for Japanese diplomacy, projecting the image of a modern Japan abroad while preserving its cultural essence of Omotenashi, and could serve as a model for Japanese firms seeking more exportable products and for countries such as Brazil pursuing their own digital identity through design.