“The design discipline, similar to its industry, has undergone a specialization process.”
In its first era, design was seen as a problem solver; it has now moved into a second era where it’s seen as a creator of meaningful experiences.
The design discipline, similar to its industry, has undergone a specialization process. Numerous job titles have emerged from ‘Visual Image Developer’, ‘UI Designer’, ‘UX Designer’ through to ‘User Interface Designer’ — each of which demand a very specific skill set.
Amongst these disciplines, we’ve more recently seen the rise of another: ‘Experience Design’. While there seem to be clear definitions, the practice is blurry.
Experience design is not just digital design
The idea that design has moved from being a problem solver to a creator of meaningful experiences especially holds true in light of the move from broadcast to dialog. That is, the shift from one directional conversations between brand and consumer (traditional advertising), towards a two directional conversation (e.g. engagement through social media). It was around 2004 that people started seeing there was something more than just brand and services; they got tired of passive consumption. It was around this time that Don Norman — the first User Experience Architect at Apple coined the term ‘User Experience Design’
Experience design includes the design of customer experience
The holistic nature of Experience Design also includes the Customer Experience (CX), which itself encompasses a breadth of factors that affect the realm of Experience Design. CX looks at the experience a customer has across every touch point of their brand.
Time + Customer Closure Experiences
A closure experience considers the entire life cycle of a product, ensuring no negative consequences arise for a customer, and also that all parties involved in the transaction are satisfied. In Joe’s own words, a closure experience “aims to highlight the issues that arise when we fail to close customer relationships in an adequate manner.”
Imbalances in the customer lifecycle
Nowadays, a common scenario exists where a customer’s consumption becomes easier, whilst their waste becomes less actionable over time. This is an example of an imbalance in the customer lifecycle, and therefore a poor closure experience. It creates a negative customer experience, which can be represented with two conflicting selfs of a customer
- The consumer self, which is experiencing products/services
- The civil self, which is more aware of the destruction caused by their consumption
This is where we can use design to ensure such imbalances are avoided. It can be done by attentively designing both the starting and closure experiences
There is a clear interest gap between on-boarding and off-boarding. While commerce and design are focused on on-boarding and usage experience, they miss a great opportunity to create a meaningful closure experience — something important to experience designers. For a more in-depth exploration into closure experiences, I recommend reading ‘Closure Experience’ by Joe Macleod.
Experience design is an iterative process
Similar to UX design, Experience Design encompasses an iterative learning process. At Hyper Island, I encountered 2 key tools for understanding how experience can be crafted: by prototyping, and through the use of an iterative process known as ‘The Learning Spiral”.
Prototyping is a powerful tool to test out ideas at an early stage at a low fidelity, align and concretize ideas within the team. It is also useful for including the client at an early stage (and thereby closing the anxiety gap). The advantage of early prototyping is that it can be 10x cheaper to pivot now than at the next stage of the process.
The Learning Spiral is a tool Hyper Island applies in their courses. The spiral starts off with doing something, then reflecting upon it, generalizing the learning, and finally applying it. The sequence is then repeated.
Experience design is still evolving
Overall, this holistic understanding of Experience Design printing is relatively young and evolving. At the forefront is a group of talented and passionate individuals that I had the pleasure to meet during the Hyper Island Experience Design Lab.
Additionally, I am constantly seeking conversation with like-minded people to bring this Experience Design mindset into practice. Check out the other articles I wrote and keep this open discussion going!