The world we live today has been known to shift from the material to a more experiential driven. People's purchases are more driven by the experiences they have with products rather than just the product or the technology. It is not just about the form and function, but also the impact those experiences can have, the emotions they evoke, which creates the aesthetic lived experiences for the user. Studies show that experiential purchases make people happier than material purchases of the same value (Boven and Gilovich, 2003; Carter and Gilovich, 2010).
A simple experience that intrigued me recently was the "Spotify Wrapped up" story that beautifully builds in the “a-ha” moment for its users. It provided them cool insights into how much time they have spent on Spotify over the years, the artist that they like and their top songs and genre that they listen to. For me personally, it was an “a-ha” moment where you realize something about yourself that you hadn’t thought of before. Now that is an experience that leaves a mark by invoking an emotion with delight or surprise.
A simple yet unexpected use of a story that was a social trend was effectively executed to go viral by providing the option to share on social media. There are other music streaming apps and the platform's fundamental function is to stream music and this is a little something extra, leaving a residue as an amazing experience for the users. So experience is a feeling that you invoke in a user that creates a memory which can be delightful, pleasant or meaningful. Therefore, as Hassenzahl says, “Experience or User Experience is not about technology, industrial design, or interfaces, it is about creating a meaningful experience through a device.” Experiences are the aesthetic interactions between the user and the artifact, and, in this case even though it is the application and the technology, the experience that the application provides for the user through the interactions influences the users behavior about listening to music. Experience can include services, processes or any system that a user can go through in the journey. Restaurant and hospitality businesses are trending these days for the unique experience that they offer. Dining in the sky, cave, yacht or even a unique service like Karen's Diner where the customers are greeted and waited upon by rude waiters. In this case, there is no device or application involved and the original service is still to serve food, but with unique experiences to engage the consumer.
Experience Design is the practice of designing products, services, processes, events, journeys, and environments by being thoughtful about the user through a human centered approach.
An Experience designer would ask, “What do people need to get this work done, and how can we design a solution that is easy, engaging and meaningful to use?”
“Experience designers are a tiny group of people with a radically universalized prospectus.” — Bruce Sterling (2009)
With the competing industry and the growth of audience XD becomes a crucial part of the “better product” race. A great way to improve the experience is to build products that engage with users, providing valuable features to create memorable and meaningful experiences that are preserved as memorized stories outside the app. Users now hold unprecedented power in today's use of products and services. Experience designers are required to think out of the box by challenging the design trends, as users or stakeholders, all demand experiences that are delightful, seamless, easy, secure and more personalized. Consistency matters but consistency also kills creativity. A designer should be consistent in learning new trends of design but is needed to be creative to push creative experiences for the product to sustain its lifeline.
For instance, consider AirBnb’s booking experience. Its underlying goal is to aid a customer book a stay with the host. They did something better by offering 55+ categories for the user to choose from in booking a stay which was exciting and something new that engaged the user due to its endless possibilities in booking a stay. This clearly shows the amount of research AirBnb has done to uncover these kinds of categories. Overall, the Airbnb app has set the bar high for other apps in terms of great design and UX, and I believe that it truly exemplifies what great app design and UX should look like.
When users have an amazing experience it means they’ll continue to choose that product over others. They will talk about it and recommend it to their friends and family as long as the next best thing comes up to beat this trend. I believe that experience design will continue to evolve and change as technology and user needs change. I don't think it will become more difficult, but the challenges that Experience designers face may be different in the future. Using AI to personalize experiences for the users is the biggest potential I see in Experience design. Netflix for example provides recommendations to their members, which is a key part of their business and remains the most popular of all global streaming services—and its customers continue to renew their subscription, month after month and year after year.
Personalization in experience design involves tailoring the user experience to individual users in order to make it more relevant and engaging for them. This can be achieved through various means, such as using data about the user's preferences, behavior, and demographics to customize the content, functionality, and design of the experience. The potential of personalization in experience design is significant, as it can help to improve the user experience and make it more effective at achieving the desired outcomes. By providing users with personalized experiences, companies and organizations can increase user engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty, which can ultimately lead to better business results.
Experience design is also a great business strategy to create something that can fulfill both designers and stakeholders on a deeper level. Great experiences can make users happy by giving them the “aha” moment and these happy users make the world a better place.
Further down the lane with the increasing use of technology there would be more demand to enhance the users experience. Virtual and augmented reality, metaverse would be the next technological milestone for experience designers. With meta’s recent explorations into metaverse XD’s approach provides engaging and immersive virtual experiences to the users. This can include designing interactive elements, creating visually stunning environments, and developing engaging storylines or quests for users to participate in. In the metaverse, experience designers have the unique challenge of creating immersive experiences that seamlessly blend the virtual and physical worlds. This often involves leveraging advanced technology, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, to create a sense of presence and immersion for users.
Another trend that is likely to continue is the increasing focus on user-centered design. This means that designers will continue to put the needs of the user at the center of their work, and will strive to create experiences that are intuitive, easy to use, and provide real value to users.
A good experience starts with the thought that we want to make the users feel happy or delighted when using the product. Being thoughtful requires building empathy towards users and understanding their state of mind as they go about their touchpoints. Every feature interaction and the outcome needs to be analyzed or predicted through research and feedback. As designers it is our job to care about how people feel when they interact with the product we’ve created.
Other key values or principles that are important in the field of experience design. These include usability, which refers to the ease with which users can achieve their goals with a product or service; equitable, which refers to making the design accessible to everyone, including users who are for example visually impaired and are using text-to-speech software; and value, which refers to the extent to which the user experience provides value to users and meets their needs and expectations.
There are various ways to measure the success of an experience design, such as through user surveys, usability testing, and analytics. These methods can help to identify areas for improvement and inform the design process.
To shape the user experience, experience designers often follow a process that includes research, ideation, prototyping, testing, and iteration. This process helps to ensure that the experience is designed with the user in mind and meets their needs and expectations. It also allows designers to test and refine the experience in order to make it as effective and engaging as possible.
When someone asks me what I do as a Product designer. I thought that I would have a standard response. The experience design course with Prof. Erik Stolterman has made me understand it is more about what and how you work as a designer and now just standardized to every person. Each designer might have a different way of sharing what they do. From the learnings I’ve gained I can confidently say that I strive to make the interactions between humans and products more easy, pleasant and delightful so that they have a meaningful experience. Designers of experience must be empathetic, thinking about the consequences of their design choices before crafting experiences that can benefit users. Let us build meaningful designs that can impact positive changes in humankind :)
[1] Boven, L.V., Gilovich, T.D. (2003) To Do or to Have? That Is the Question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 85 (6), 1193–1202.
[2] Carter, T.J., Gilovich, T.D. (2010) The Relative Relativity of Material and Experiential Purchases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 98, 146–159.
[3] Hassenzahl, M. (n.d.) User Experience and Experience Design. In: Soegaard, M., Dam, R.F. (eds).
[4] Inspired: How to create tech products customers love, Cagan, Marty, 2008[1] https://www.dummies.com/business/business-strategy/the-what-who-and-why-questions-of-business-analysis/
The rapid evolution of technology has enabled mankind to be more..
Read articleThis article discusses how Apple users are obliviously entrapped into its ecosystem on three different levels
Read articleIf you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
bhanuprathap.pv@gmail.com
