Designing Experiences

by J Robert Rossman, Mathew D. Duerden, B. Joseph Pine II (Foreword)

In an increasingly experience-driven economy, companies that deliver great experiences thrive, and those that do not die. Yet many organizations face difficulties implementing a vision of delivering experiences beyond the provision of goods and services. Because experience design concepts and approaches are spread across multiple, often disconnected disciplines, there is no book that succinctly explains to students and aspiring professionals how to design them.

J. Robert Rossman and Mathew D. Duerden present a comprehensive and accessible introduction to experience design. They synthesize the fundamental theories and methods from multiple disciplines and lay out a process for designing experiences from start to finish. Rossman and Duerden challenge us to reflect on what makes a great experience from the user’s perspective. They provide a framework of experience types, explaining people’s engagement with products and services and what makes experiences personal and fulfilling. The book presents interdisciplinary research underlying key concepts such as memory, intentionality, and dramatic structure in a down-to-earth style, drawing attention to both the macro and micro levels. Designing Experiences features detailed instructions and numerous real-world examples that clarify theoretical principles, making it useful for students and professionals. An invaluable overview of a growing field, the book provides readers with the tools they need to design innovative and indelible experiences and to move their organizations into the experience economy.

Designing Experiences features a foreword by B. Joseph Pine II.

Genres: Design, Business, Nonfiction, Leadership, Psychology

224 pages, Hardcover

Published July 23, 2019

Reviews

[Brady Leavitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Mat was one of my professors when BYU first started the Experience Industry Management (the original name of the program) and this book was a great refresher course on experiences. I use the lessons taught in this book daily in my career and my personal life. This book is amazing for anyone interested in learning about the expanding experience industry.

[Himanshu Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert and Mathew attempts to provide a framework for designing experiences.
Great experience designers think through a series of micro experiences that combine to create the macroexperience. Most effective macroexperiences include upto 5 experience types:
1. Prosaic experience (autopilot). Ex: color of toothbrush. People forget these quickly. However must get this right otherwise they might remember negatively.

2. Mindful experience (effortful mental engagement). Ex: Airline using humor to help get customer's attention during safety announcements

3. Memorable experiences (emotion). For this one must engage people emotionally. When people attach an emotion to a memory, people talk about it and share it

4. Meaningful experiences (discovery). Memorable becomes meaningful when a person learns something new and significant. Here designer depends on the participant's co-creation of experience. Allow participants to reflect, ideally with others who shared the experience

5. Transformational experience (change)
These rare experience change people in profound ways. This builds on elements of mindful, memorable and meaningful experiences. Very important to understand participants

One should not try to make every experience mindful or transformational. Map your experiencecape like a writer storyboards their book or movie.

[Austėja Žvaginytė · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is my professional gold mine. Most of concepts are not new but I appreciate the examples and the thorough style in which the book is written.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really practical book with some excellent summaries of a variety of fields such as positive psychology, design, and UX. The principles and frameworks are so versatile one can use them regardless of whether it is a digital project, and live event, or something personal.

A few helpful things I want to keep in mind in the future:

Experience defined: "Experience is a unique interactional phenomenon resulting from conscious awareness and reflective interpretation of experience elements that is sustained by a participant, culminating in personally perceived results and memories." (p. 10)

The concept of macro experiences (anticipation, participation, reflection) and micro experiences (Participant + Experience Elements --> perceived results) within the macro experience.

5 experience types
1) Prosaic: system 1 - autopilot
2) Mindful: enter system 2, effortful
3) Memorable: both effortful and elements of emotion/senses
4) Meaningful: discovery and meaning-making with reflection with role of heavy participation
5) Transformational: Memorable experiences that lead to perspective, attitude or behavior change

Attributes that can be mapped to experience types:
1) Frequency and impact
2) Novelty
3) Engagement
4) Required energy
5) Results

These two together creates a tremendously interesting and helpful model.

Based on lots of different kinds of research, the best experiences accomplish the following:
1) Produce positive emotion
2) Engage attention
3) Help develop and strengthen relationships
4) Provide meaning through connections to something larger than ourselves
5) Promote competence
6) Grant autonomy

Also helpful are the 6 elements of a given "experiencescape"
1) People
2) Place
3) Objects
4) Rules
5) Relationships
6) Blocking (choreography of people's location and movement through an experience)

There are some really helpful templates and tools beyond this. I highly recommend it!

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts are redundant.

[Laila Collman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides templates, detailed examples, and lots of suggestions for how you can improve customer experiences. It begins by asking readers to think deeply about what an "experience" really is, then uses our understanding of this term to deconstruct the experiences we provide, in order to improve them. It also emphasizes the importance of mapping out the customer's journey. It encourages readers to identify the key reactions that they want their customers to have, and then re-design the customer experience based on those end goals. I appreciated that this wasn't just another superficial business book, but brought a psychological perspective and encouraged the reader to think holistically about the experiences they are creating (i.e. "everything speaks").

[Alyssa Foll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think of this book as the 201-or-301-level follow-up to "The Power of Moments" by Chip and Dan Heath. If you are in charge of any kind of gathering or creating an experience for others, you should read this book! It's a great introduction to concepts in experience design as well as identifying the scholarly research and sources behind those concepts. I appreciated that many of the things that I've read about experience design were all pulled together into one volume.
While it does have an academic bent to it, I would still say it is a popular level or popular-level-plus read. I was able to immediately apply some practices for an upcoming event I am designing.
Highly recommended.

[Misty · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first foray into the technical field of experience design. It was a great practical guide to the anatomy, the practices and tools for intentionally creating events and processes. I was reading this for application in my role as a middle school teacher and the corrollaries to practices in public education were abundant. I am definitely going to apply what I learned as I think about how my students experience my classroom and learning this year.

[Emin Baki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good and practical guideline when design experience matters!

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors--a couple of professors--do a nice job of weaving together a lot of threads into a mostly practical and concise guide to creating experiences.

[Marzia Della Corte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good framework, reads like a textbook.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better books summarizing experience design principles, with tools, stories, and explanations that are easy to understand and quick to apply.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book filled with foundational principles and examples of those principles throughout our world today.

[Henry Aldaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnífico un libro recomendado de principio a fin.

[Marianne Cottin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant!

[zoagli · Rating 3 out of 5]

As our economy moves from products to services, it’s imperative to design how people experience these services. This book helps, and I plan to use the Touchpoint Template and the Hero’s Journey to design my next training course.

I could have done without the authors reciting their take on “Thinking Fast and Slow” and on Design Thinking, none of which is “relatively new” any more. And there are better sources for that.