WHAT IS
EXPERIENCE DESIGN?

1

Even THIS WEBSITE.

Experience Design is a design methodology in which the final product is the experience of the USER or the AUDIENCE rather than the thing that is created.

Because EVERYTHING1 that a human engages with creates an experience, experience design is discipline agnostic, and experience designers tend to work across disciplines2.

2

Immersive theater makers, experiential marketers, and installation artists often think of themselves as experience designers. But experience designers can be found in a wide variety of practices, from graphic design to architecture, from Human Resources to religious practices, from social design to political activism. Experience Design is the practice of placing the emotional and the affective at the center of the design process rather than the “thing” or material that is created. Where traditional design is complete when the “thing” is produced, experience design comes to life in the lived subjective experience of the audience.

ten principles of experience design

I.

All we have are experiences.

When we make the experience the aim of the design process, we are no longer making things, but putting those things in service of our larger experiential aim.

II.

Employ Empathy Rigorously.

Experiences exist only in the lives of the experiencers. We must learn to see with their eyes, and use research and inclusion to help us see what we cannot.

III.

experiences are framed.

Experiences exist only in the lives of the experiencers. We must learn to see with their eyes, and use research and inclusion to help us see what we cannot.

IV.

Powerful Experiences Engage the Whole Person.

Experiences are received through all the senses and may be intellectually, emotionally, and physically immersive.

V.

WE LIVE IN MANY WORLDS.

Worlds are grand collective experience designs. Whether at the scale of a country or at the scale of a board game, the general design principles are the same. Worlds determine who we can be and what we can do.

VI.

narrative is everywhere.

Because the experience of narrative can be found not only in texts, but in things, in interactions, or in environments, the experience designer writes stories in many different forms.

VII.

design for the unknown.

The defining quality of liveness is the unknown. Therefore, for an experience to feel truly alive, it must include the unknown.

VIII.

Transformative Experiences Work with Eventness.

When a well-structured experience meets an engaged group of people, eventness emerges, and change is possible.

VIII.

use diagrams.

Diagrams are the tools the designer uses to become the experience designer, liberating the design process from the strictures of old notational forms.

X.

make work that matters.

Because we have a finite number of experiences on this side of oblivion, your work had better be meaningful.

FREE DOWNLOAD

The Quick Start Guide to Designing Experiences Instead of Things

No matter what project you are working on — be it an immersive experience, an organizational structure, a piece of software, or Thanksgiving dinner — the principles of experience design apply.

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FREE DOWNLOAD

Four Experience Design Hacks to Enhance Team Collaboration

These FOUR hacks are ways to drive out the dull and re-engage as a team more deeply, and add less than ten minutes to any meeting or co-working session.

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