Human Experience Design
A conversation with Akendi Chief Usability Architect Tedde van Gelderen on “The Importance of Human Experience Design”
Akendi’s Tedde van Gelderen is an advocate of human experience design; a process that introduces the human as a stakeholder early in the development of a product or service.
But what exactly is human experience design – and why is it important that companies adopt a human-centric approach?
1. What is an experience?
2.What do we mean by experience design?
3.Why should companies think about experience when designing their product or service?
4. What are the key aspects that you take into consideration when designing an experience?
5. Can you give me an example of what you mean by having emotion form part of an experience?
6. Why is a human-centric approach to design so important – and what can it do for companies who adopt this approach?
7. What’s the importance of taking an informed approach to design? 8. What process do you follow when designing experiences?
9. What do you mean by the experience lifecycle and why should companies follow this approach?
10. What advice would you give to companies who are looking to design more effective user and customer experiences?
An experience is a situation that we encounter on a daily basis. It could be a trip on the subway, bus or to the airport. It could also be something you use like a cellphone or website.
Experiences themselves “live” in a space which could be a place or an environment. They involve users, customers and/or clients. Whether you’re using hardware, software or a service, these things become part of your experience.
2. What do we mean by experience design?
By taking a certain approach, it’s possible to design experiences so that they provide the most satisfying outcome possible for users of that experience. The best experiences are designed by taking a holistic view of how people react/interact with a set of events in specific points of time. For example, if you’re sitting in a restaurant, you go through a certain set of events in a certain order – in a certain amount of time and with a certain result. Thinking about that experience, from walking into the restaurant to leaving after a good meal, they are all part of that interaction with the restaurant. Designing for all aspects of that interaction is what experience design is all about.
3. Why should companies think about experience when designing their product or service?
Experience is important because, in the end, it’s what the user/customer/client sees and interacts with. The experience is essentially what you deliver, and what your audience lives through in the end. It’s not always about just technology, brand or vision alone, and there are many interconnecting elements.
If the experience is not a good one, chances are that your audience will never come back to experience your product or service again and you may lose them to a competitor.
4. What are the key aspects that you take into consideration when designing an experience?
There are many aspects related to experience, but some of the key ones are more intangible and include time, flow, interaction and emotion.
I talked about the relevance of time, but let’s consider the other aspects. Flow and timing are important, as events occurring during an experience tend to happen in a certain order. Interaction is also key as there is a participatory aspect gained through interaction with a product, service or person.
One interesting aspect about experiences is that they are often funneled through the human senses. What we see, hear and feel are important to how we experience something. Emotions also come into play. For example, if you’re watching a movie you’re going to feel something whether it’s happiness or sorrow. You might also feel a certain way while walking into a certain space.
5. Can you give me an example of what you mean by having emotion form part of an experience?
While in Ottawa on a business trip, I was looking to rent a car and walked up to one counter expecting the “usual” treatment. What happened next took me by surprise and affected my whole view of the car rental experience. The person across the counter smiled, held out his hand…and said “Hi – my name is Matt!”
Before any attempts at my business were made, he made an effort to make a human connection and that made a lot of difference to how I viewed the rest of the transaction and the industry in general.
6. Why is a human-centric approach to design so important – and what can it do for companies who adopt this approach?
We believe that positive experiences can empower people and make the world a better place. Companies that adopt this approach to design will create memorable product experiences that are more meaningful to their customers.
If your customers feel that you understand them, they will feel valued and this will go a long way towards establishing and maintaining loyalty towards that company or organisation.
7. What’s the importance of taking an informed approach to design?
Companies that take an informed approach to design will “de-risk” their investments by making sure that all the elements in the mix are known and well-researched with a user and customer view on things. We help our clients by taking the guesswork out of the process to ensure they have a clear picture before any ideas reach the drawing board.
In today’s economy, expectations are on the rise and our ability to see the experience from all angles helps increase organizational efficiencies and customer satisfaction with your products and services.
8. What process do you follow when designing experiences?
We take the following approach to experience design:
- Identify each element of the experience to uncover characteristics and the relative importance of each one
- Follow a proven process to understand and design the actual experience
- Apply appropriate metrics to measure, govern and track performance
It’s interesting in that the strategy we use is both divergent and convergent. We start by trying to figure out what’s going on, understand the context, then come up with a set of elements by using personas, user profiles and usage scenarios to capture information in a meaningful way. The flow can almost be compared to swimming. You’re moving in and out trying to identify what you’re dealing with, then find ways to improve it. Companies don’t always see the need to do this, but it’s critical that you do both when designing an experience.
9. What do you mean by the experience lifecycle and why should companies follow this approach?
The experience lifecycle is the journey of a typical product or service experience . It incorporates both an organizational and audience perspective to the experience, and examines elements incurred during the process such as awareness, comparison, purchase, set-up, etc.
It’s important to take a lifecycle approach so companies don’t end the experience after the purchase phase. At this point, customers will start to ask the question “what’s my relationship with you?” and feel that it’s important to have their loyalty rewarded. Companies need to continue the conversation after the purchase phase to find out what’s really meaningful to them.
In many cases, companies don’t see things from a customer-centric point of view and can spend a large portion of their budget fixing things that aren’t meaningful to their audience. We like to go in and provide a customer based perspective to show how different things impact the experience at each phase in the process.
We’ll provide the 3rd party view that takes the guesswork out of a product or web strategy and give a clear picture of what’s involved before spending money designing the experience.
10. What advice would you give to companies who are looking to design more effective user and customer experiences?
I would suggest that they look at the process as being a red thread. Every interaction with the company is connected, and it’s important for companies to “think sideways.” For example, if you’re buying a new cellphone, the process will touch on many different phases including the store, unpacking the product, the service component, upgrading the service and use of the product in a certain context of use.
Don’t take a silo approach to business and design strategy, and encourage departments within your company to talk to each other. It’s just as important to look at your external users/customers, and determine how they use your product or service and what they find most meaningful about their experience with the brand.
Perhaps the most important question that companies should be asking themselves is “How are people experiencing us?”
