An Experience Design Process

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Experience Design is about ensuring that all the touch points related to an event are designed to provide an appropriate and consistent experience for people. Just about every article or book on the topic talks about the need for people to work across silos in order to deliver a great experience. And yet…

And yet, few companies are organized in a way that makes this likely to happen. You can’t just tell people to do it and expect it to happen. Unless people are organized and rewarded for collaboration, the cross-silo work needed to deliver a great experience is not likely to happen. While it can be challenging, there are a few ways to help facilitate this.

One important step is to create an experience design framework. The framework needs to outline a clear process that explains the activities needed to successfully deliver a great experience. It is important to include the activities that involve people from multiple disciples. When done correctly, the process works to ensure that each element is designed and delivered to achieve a unified result.

An experience design process is intended to drive a common understanding of who is the customer, what are their needs, and how the delivered experience supports them. Some of the key activities in the process are:

•Identify who is the customer and user

•Define the touch points for the experience

•Define and design what will be delivered for each touch

•Identify how this experience and its touches are different or unique

•Ensure collaboration for key activities

•Identify opportunities to improve and make updates

For each person on a team, many of the activities in the process will probably seem familiar. For example, for an interaction designer there will be activities like customer site visits that can help identify people and their needs. One of the tools for improving the experience can be usability testing. However, the process will also likely include the opportunity to collaborate on activities usually done by other teams and will also include some new activities that support cross-functional work. People can use their expertise at creating web sites, call center interactions, or in-person events. The process helps to ensure that these are all done with a similar feel and quality.

For the process to work, everyone on an experience project needs to have some common skills. They need to be able to observe people, tell stories, brainstorm, design some portion of the experience, and be open to iterating based on feedback from people having the experience.

The experience design process is just one element in a successful strategy. Others include XD metrics and guidelines.

Does your company have a great Experience Design process? If so, I would love to hear about it.

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