Our Process:
Intentional Experience Creation™
Akendi’s Intentional Experience Creation™ process is a holistic end to end experience design process that introduces people as key stakeholders early in the design of hardware, software, services, mobile applications, websites, and physical environments.
Our process underpins all stages of product and service research & development– from Strategy to Research, Design, Testing and Construction. Based on our experience thinking approach, it is systematic and repeatable to deliver innovative, intentional experiences for your customers, clients & end users.
The Intentional Experience Creation process has ten stages:
enVision
Exploration, ideation & conceptualization of new opportunities for your organization to innovate and leap ahead of the competition. Robust customer experience journeys, prototypes and experience thinking tools guide the next generation experience roadmap that the organization will embark on. This can include experiences for the outside world (products, services) as well as employee experiences (intranet, tools, culture).
Business Requirements
Strategy & stakeholder workshops combined with interviews and group sessions get to the core of the organization’sgoals and vision of what the intended customer & user experience should be.
Customer Requirements
Through appropriate ethnographic field research, competitive analyses, product audits, contextual inquiries and customer persona development, we document the customer experience and identify expectations, needs and desires for the customer experience. We use the Total Experience Lifecycle™ approach to map the customer experience journey.
User Requirements
Through appropriate ethnographic analyses, user persona development, field research, interviews, contextual inquiries, usage scenario research & task analysis, we capture the current user experience and identify gaps & concern areas to be addressed.
Information Design
As the direction of the desired experience takes form - and understanding the current barriers to achieving it - the next step is matching the functions & content to the tasks and usage scenarios. The result of the information design is a blueprint of where the elements of the experience reside, what dependencies exist and what constructs the user and customer interacts with. This is typically captured in concept models, site maps, and other visualisations of the information design.
Interaction Design
Once the framework of the experiences is captured, the interaction design will create a structure and navigation for each content and function area. In software, web and mobile, the interaction design is often captured through wireframes, product renderings, prototypes and other artefacts that give shape to the new experience interface. This design phase is highly iterative and lends itself well for usability testing and cognitive walkthroughs.
Visual Design
Through the wireframes we get closer to a full visual product experience as well. The visual design will complete the wireframes by adding brand experience, graphics, animation and other elements that will complete and enhance the product experience from a visceral perspective. Here, a thorough testing with end users will solidify the user experience design.
Experience Specification
Based on the visual design, we specify the user experience, in the form of design patterns, UX guidelines, standards and detailed design documents. Enough information for a hardware or software engineering team to build the experience according to the design specification.
Implementation Support
Throughout construction, coding, engineering and manufacturing, we support the experience design development of products, software and mobile apps with ongoing support, iterative design and usability testing.
Launch
The new product, service or software experience is released to market and its success is validated based on established key performance indicators and out-of-the-box testing.
Intentional Experience Creation
In summary, Akendi's Intentional Experience research & design process ensures that:
- The intended audiences are consulted throughout the strategy, research, design and construction phases
- Customer & user involvement is effectively managed with focussed tools and techniques
- The experience design is sufficiently iterated
- Experiences are created with a multi-disciplinary team
- Critical flaws in the user & customer experience are identified, validated and resolved well before construction commences.
Let's Talk!
Please email Shaun Illingworth, Managing Director, at contact@akendi.com or 1.866.585.1660 x0 for questions and more information about how we help optimize your intentional experience creation, digital product design, physical product design, or wayfinding & signage.
