The ExperienceBuilt Group Founder Patricia Houston took to the stage at SampleCon in Atlanta to talk about the importance of experience design in an Attention Economy.
“What I do now, by practice, is experience design,” Houston said. “That term is confusing because many people think I design experiences. That’s not it. You don’t ‘experience design’ something, just as you can’t ‘behavioral science’ something. It’s not a verb; it’s a process.
“It’s about taking all these different disciplines and bringing them together in a culturally relevant way,” Houston added. “We go small to go big – our work is the sum of many, many micro-touchpoints.”
Houston stressed the importance of creating solutions that meet the audience’s needs and how teams must work in harmony to deliver. She shared real-life examples to bring to life the eight principles of experience design.
Communication must match the product; otherwise, organizations risk creating an experience gap for their guests, one that will almost certainly end in disappointment. Achieving success requires communication at every step of the process, so everyone involved is aligned and working toward a common goal.
“What often happens when we talk about making disciplines and processes work in harmony is an experience gap forms,” Houston said. “That’s what we feel as friction. When experience design is done right, it eliminates that friction.”
For years, organizations have tried to create a customer experience department, but often the result is a call center.
“It’s important, don’t get me wrong,” Houston said. “You have to have customer service, but just having a call center doesn’t mean that you are executing experience design. True experience design necessitates organizational change.”
SampleCon is an annual conference for the Insights community focused on the intersection of human engagement, research, and innovation. The event brings together global leaders to share perspectives on industry issues, challenges, trends, and successes.
For more information, visit EBG.LIVE.