Experimenting with Experiences

My colleagues and I have been playing around with some experience experiments. Try saying that 10 times fast! We are digital experience designers, but the language we use to talk about what that means is pretty jargon-y and inaccessible to most. Proclaiming one is a digital designer usually prompts questions like, “what does that mean, you create websites?” Or, “oh, like you draw the buttons on apps?” While the answer to both of these questions can be yes, most of the work we do is about designing experience. 

What is experience? According to Google’s version of the Oxford English dictionary, experience in its verb form means to encounter or undergo an event or occurrence and also, importantly, to feel. 

We like to define design as creation with intention, which is a definition we stole and adapted, something all great designers do. Designing experiences then, is creating with intention something someone encounters, undergoes, and/or feels. Feeling is tricky because it can be defined a thousand different ways and can refer to how we perceive information from any and all of our senses (not just touch) or to the emotional reaction we have to our perceptions. So much feeling! 

Neuroscientists think sensory experiences shape the brain through neural connections. They are mapping human cellular structures and connectivity to try to understand this better. What blows my mind about this is how important experience is in literally, physically shaping us. What we encounter and experience changes us and makes us who we are.

Given the challenges of our present circumstances–mitigating and becoming resilient to climate change, figuring out how to deal with homelessness, making sure our kids have access to a quality education while we have no idea whatsoever what the future economy we are preparing them for will look like, just to name a few–it feels like experience design matters a lot.

My team and I are struggling with language. Our work is all about understanding the impact or effects of the products we help create, not just on users but on communities and the environment, so the term user experience (UX)  is insufficient. Also, the digital and physical worlds are merging in ways that make it pretty complicated to think about only one or the other and get anything right.

Have you spoken to an AI lately that sounded like a sleek British man was in your car giving you directions? Or some version of Scarlett Johanson was answering your ChatGPT inquiries? How about starting a robot vacuum, or a car, or an HVAC system with a digital interface? These are all physical objects doing physical things in a physical world that we are connecting with through a digital mediator. The act of engaging with that mediator can and does generate feeling. Have you gotten annoyed with a digital product lately? Did it feel any different than being annoyed by a physical product? So is it really digital design?

I don’t know. No matter what we call it, designing well, with humility, given the circumstances, is a pretty damn big responsibility. 

When my team gets overwhelmed by these kinds of questions, we often try to do something collaborative and playful. This post highlights one example. We recently hosted a happy hour during San Francisco Climate Week. We created a  fun way for our guests to encounter the importance of designed experience. Especially how the digital and physical designs that affect how and what we feel can be inextricably intertwined. It was an experiment in experiential communication–we wanted to see how obvious we could make some of these ideas we only have abstract language to talk about.

We cooked up this idea to set up photo booths in our event space with two different flavors of experience design. By some miracle of amazing luck, when we reached out to photo booth companies, we found Scott Roeder at Oh Snap. He just randomly happened to have a background in human computer interaction and was thrilled to collaborate with us. We delightedly worked together to figure out all of the ways we could differentiate the photo booth experience so that one version was done well, in accordance with design standards, and the other was designed poorly. Our intent was to help people connect to the reality that digital experience affects physical experience. And design matters.

Here’s what we did:

The well-designed photo booth experience was located in a private space to create an environment where guests could feel comfortable in front of a camera. Staff welcomed guests and gave them a clear explanation of how the process would work. Guests were able to see a live preview on a start screen as soon as they entered the photo booth. Guests knew exactly how they were going to appear in the photos and where to look for cues. We programmed the screen to provide simple, clear, timed instructions, including information about how many photos they would take,  indicators for where to direct their attention, and countdowns for each photo to enable them to prepare. Lighting, camera, and framing were all at optimal settings. Fun props were available for guests to have something to engage with while their photos were being taken. After each photo, guests were able to preview the photo prior to printing. They also saw directions to prepare for the next photo. 

Here’s a glimpse of what guests saw on the well-designed screens.

And here’s an example of the printed photo strip guests received.

The poorly-designed photo booth experience was set up in the open so that anyone at the event could clearly see the person/people taking photos. Staff were present, but did not provide any information. When a guest stepped into the booth, the screen simply said “Tap to start” and no live preview was provided. The start button was placed off center and was not indicated, leaving guests to poke around the screen until they found it. When they managed to find the start button, the live-preview was revealed. However, the scale and dimensions were off. The camera lens was set to manual focus, unfocused with a non-optimized flash position, impairing the quality of the lighting. Guests were given a countdown to prepare for each photo, but with only one second. The preview screen showed the final photostrip very small and partially off the screen. Printed photos had inconsistent photo sizing, placement, repeated photos, and missing photos and guests had to retrieve their photos from the printer placed on the floor.

Here’s a glimpse of what guests saw on the poorly-designed screens.

And here’s an example of the printed photo strip guests received.

For being a non-controlled, guerilla research style experiment, this one was pretty successful. We found it easy to employ poor design in both the physical and digital components of the experience we created. Our guests confirmed our booths provided an obvious demonstration of the power of design. As a bonus, they appreciated that there was an optional, fun and unexpected activity at a networking event. Our team had a great time collaborating with Scott. We’re already scheming about how we might create the next experience design demonstration for New York Climate Week. We keep dreaming about sculptures that generate climate change simulations. If you have any brilliant ideas, reach out to nicole@allelodesign.com!

Free Photos Inside image by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash