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Debate: You cannot design an experience.
When the pioneer of customer loyalty research writes about customer experience in the Harvard Business Review, you’d better listen. In 2005 Fred Reichheld co-authored the article “The Three D’s of Customer Experience.” In this insightful and visionary piece, the authors point out that “[e]ighty percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8 percent of their customers agree.” Then, the authors outline three ways to remedy the situation. According to them, the following behaviors set the companies that got it right apart from the rest: “1. design the right offers and experiences for the right customers. 2. deliver these propositions by focusing the entire company on them with an emphasis on cross-functional collaboration. 3. develop their capabilities to please customers again and again—by such means as revamping the planning process, training people in how to create new customer propositions, and establishing direct accountability for the customer experience.”
I agree with the spirit of those statements, but not with the phrasing of 1. I submit that no one can actually design a human “experience!” Experience is an emergent property of the interaction of people with products. If you take the definition of “customer experience” outlined here [http://wp.me/p1sLNl-2U] seriously, you will agree. “Experience” is a subjective state, the result of several conditions: 1. the person with his or her personality, dispositions, moods, needs, and so on; 2. the situation or context of use; 3. the product or service in question.
Companies can only control their products. The really consumer-centric companies also have gained knowledge about and empathy for their users (their personality, dispositions, moods, needs, and and so on). It is only when you develop products and services based on such knowledge and when you constantly track consumer feedback and adjust accordingly, can you HOPE to affect the consumer experience positively.
Robert Winner 50+
In the spirit of the above defination: If I take you camping for the first time you gain knowledge of woodlore, some skills, and hopefully a appreciation for camping. I have indeed designed a experience for you. I can therefore advertise: Come and enjoy the experience of camping. OR Become a part of our high country program designed to experience nature at its finest. Whether you enjoy this adventure is up to you but the adventure, program, or experience was designed for you. Travel agents do this for you all the time.
All the best. Bob.
Dan Geurin 10+
Alex Genov
Juliette Zahn 50+
Jose V Balaguer
I agree with You: people experience the same reality in many different ways. Since the amount of attention is variable in each person as are their senses' sharpness and personal preferences UX is closer to a matter of faith than to science.
Alex Genov
Also, having worked with product teams for many years, I wish I could say everybody believed that ...
If I did not believe this was a topic worth debating, I would not have started this thread and you would not have responded :)
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Thus far, wouldn't you say everyone in the "debate" seems to be on the side of designers' being able to influence the customer's experience but not control the reaction absolutely? I would guess the author to whom you refered would take that same stance.
The variation will only be in how much someone believes the designer can influence the reaction of the customer.
That people or businesses do not succeed in what they try to do does not to me suggest a problem of belief, or proof of belief, but rather a problem of implementation.
Alex Genov
Hope you are not treating this as empirical evidence ... Seems more like confirmation bias to me :)
Fritzie Reisner 100+
James Zhang 30+
Every design affords the end-user to do certain things. You're not going to use a mouse to use an iPad. You're not gonna use your toes to hold a gun and pull a trigger. You're not going to read a book upside down. Or are you going to use a mouse with your left or your right hand? By design, the mouse I'm using is for the right hand since the curves and grip fits perfectly for that hand and fits uncomfortably for the other.
Companies make and design products, sure, but people will use the products depending on the way it's designed.
Alex Genov
Here I offer one definition: http://wp.me/p1sLNl-2G
By that definition you cannot design an "experience" :)
James Zhang 30+
So how is it impossible to design "experience"? It still sounds like the same definition I'm referring to of Experience, so what makes this definition impossible to be designed?
Alex Genov
James Zhang 30+
But the response "Can you make somebody like you? Not really." can be interpreted as "design has no influence at all," which sounds wrong to most people.
Alex Genov
Rick Ryan 10+
Maybe you can't make someone like every other person in the world, but the entertainment industry proves you most certainly CAN make someone like someone else. And is is done through design in almost all cases.
Musicians and singers are "designed" in their personal appearance, and the concerts are designed based on the knowledge of the expectations of the "customer" the artist will draw to concerts and buy their music products outside of the concerts.
Actresses and actors...same thing for their products...movies, TV shows, etc.
Sports figures...same thing in just different venues.
I'll guarantee you, the "customers" who spends millions (billions?) of dollars each year do it because they "like" the person (and the product) they are spending the money on. And those "celebrities" have a very designed public image they present to their customers.
Even political candidates have designed public images they present when campaiging in order to get the voters to like them.
James Zhang 30+
Except that you said "we cannot design experience" where I say we can. You're basically saying that because the ones designing the product cannot have full control over the subjective user, therefore they cannot design experience, making it sound like design has no influence.
But you can say that we cannot design the experience for 100% of the masses, since everyone's different. That would be a more accurate statement.
Juliette Zahn 50+
Alex Genov
Walt Disney had a vision and designed a physical place, the costumes, the processes, etc. I think my argument still stands :)
James Zhang 30+
Rick Ryan 10+
Your own topic narrative includes the sentence, "It is only when you develop PRODUCTS and SERVICES based on such knowledge and when you constantly track consumer feedback and adjust accordingly, can you HOPE to affect the consumer experience positively."
Disneyland is a product and a service. So is every themed resort/casino out here is Las Vegas. I'm sure the owners of all of them DID design those complexes "based on knowledge" of consumer expectations, and I know for a fact they "track consumer feedback and adkust accordingly". Heck, I worked in the casino industry out here for 5 years after I retired from the Air Force. Seemed to me the customers were having a "positive consumer experience".
A customer is a customer, whether they buy a product to "keep" from you or are just a "visitor" to your "business complex" that was designed to give them a "positive customer experience". And even though as James implied that Disneyland may have been designed for kids, I'll guarantee you the resort/casino complexes in the world are designed for the adult population.
So I guess I'm lost. What Is your "argument" that you said you are "right" about? What are you trying to "change" or "implement" that isn't being used by numerous successfull businesses in different venues already? Is the crux of your topic aimed ONLY at "products" the consumer buys and then "owns" after they buy it, like a car? Or does the topic include "services" like theme parks, resort complexes, etc...places that people "just visit".
Just trying to understand what I'm missing here.
Alex Genov
- A lot of companies out there purport to "design great customer experiences" without knowing nothing about their customers - this, I would say, is the majority; it is also supported by the research of the Harvard guys - 92% of companies
- The companies, whose products and services do result in great positive customer experiences (note the difference in phrasing), have the humility to say "we may not know our customers very well, so let's get to know them better through research and so on"
- The term "to design an experience" has become so overused that people do not stop to think about what it means
- My goals is to make people examine the meaning and, more importantly, ask themselves the question: How well do we really know our customers?
Rick Ryan 10+
I'm certain Walt Disney would not agree that Disneyland was a failure at "designing an experience" for the customers it was designed for.
Alex Genov
I am bringing up the issue not because I am a linguist, I am not. I am bringing it up because "designing experiences" has become a trendy but meaningless cliche - overused both by "gurus" and by designers, product managers, engineers, etc. alike.
I believe that when we dig a bit below the surface of the language used, we can help companies design better products which will result in better experiences :)
Fritzie Reisner 100+
I have never seen someone write about design or design thinking without beginning with the needs/wants/tastes of the target population.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
When people talk about designing an experience, I have never known them to mean that they expect to control every conceivable response and reaction of the person moving through. Rather, they try to anticipate in the process of design the way people will respond to the environments they are setting up.
Gail . 50+
Businesses have the power to control their own products and services. I have the power to control my thoughts and purchases (until that power is totally taken away by places such as Home Depot and Walmart, who come into a community and put all of the local businesses out of business.)
chen xin
just as a computer we need hardware and also we need software.if we want to succeed in doing something .
so how can we do well ?what do we need .
george lockwood 20+