You can only Design ½ of what goes into an Experience

Understandably, we talk about being user experience designers. However, in the end, we don’t design an experience. That’s something the user has. We design a product or service. Or more generally a system. That’s the 1/2 we do have control over.

Other things to keep in mind when designing for a user, but from a system perspective:

Do the necessary people research to get the current state of the system and the user’s experience within it.

Evidence-based Journeys, Personas, and Service Blueprints are some of the most powerful tools.

Since you often redesign a system – or at least impact one – do people research beyond your user/customers; understand other stakeholders and how your product or service impacts them or will impact them.

Design not only the future state of the service/product/system but also the transition to that state. Transformation and UX go hand in hand.

Often that step above implies redesigning the Employee Experience as well since they can be vital to succesfully delivering a new user experience; especially in complex systems.

Scott Plewes

Chief Strategy Officer

Over the past twenty-five years, Scott has worked in the areas of business strategy, product design and development in the high tech sector with a specialization in experience design. He has extensive cross-sector expertise and experience working with clients in complex regulated industries such as aviation, telecom, health, and finance. His primary area of focus over the last several years has been in product and service strategy and the integration of multi-disciplinary teams and methods. Scott has a master's degree in Theoretical Physics from Queen's University.