Experience Design Has a Bright Future

I am passionate about the power and importance of designing intentional experiences. After almost two decades of work in this space I am increasingly convinced that experience design needs to be a core function of any organization and I keep having experiences that cement this perspective.

Almost 10 years ago Brian Hill and I hosted a gathering of 25 or so academics and professionals from diverse disciplines and industries. We wanted to see if they could find common ground and beneficial connections around the topic of "experiences". We were delighted to see how natural it was for individuals in very different roles and organizations to share best practices and insights about designing and staging experiences.

This event kick started an effort to build a new curriculum at BYU focused on experiences. In 2017 our faculty launched a new rebranded major, Experience Design and Management, in the Marriott School of Business at BYU. Since that time we have seen enrollment in the program and placement quality of our graduates steadily increase.

Another reason I am increasingly excited about experience design is the quality of people that gravitate to this topic and the amazing work they produce. Our curriculum is built upon the thinking about experience experts like Joe Pine , Jim Gilmore , Aga (Agnieszka) Szóstek , John Connors , Benjamin Rabner , J. Robert "Bob" Rossman , Dave Norton , James Wallman and many others. Our Experience Design and Management major also attracts amazing students who are passionate about making the world a better place through experience design.

Then during the pandemic, when all experiences were being shut down, two amazing experience focused professional organizations were founded: the #WorldExperienceOrganization by James Wallman (www.worldxo.org) and the #ExperienceResearchSociety (www.experienceresearchsociety.org) which grew out of the work of Virpi Roto and Markus Ahola and their colleagues at Aalto University in Finland. Both organizations are thriving and gathering amazing experience researchers and professionals together. If you're not aware of or involved with these organizations you should be.

To cap off all these positive trends Brian Hill and I along with students and colleagues at BYU were able to host the first in person gathering for the Experience Research Society last week. The 7 Experiences Summit was an amazing experience for multiple reasons: 1) Brian and I got to meet in person with our fellow Experience Research Society executive committee members in person who we had only interacted with over zoom during the pandemic including Virpi Roto , Harsh Manrao , Jarkko Toikkanen , James Wallman , and Gary David , 2) My students got interact with leaders in the field including authors of books they are reading in their classes, 3) The most amazing content was shared in research/workshop sessions and from keynote speakers including Aga (Agnieszka) Szóstek , Gary David , James Wallman , Karen Melton , Jim Gilmore , Derek Lomas , Haian Xue , and Steven Fokkinga , 4) Kevin Dulle created the most amazing visual summaries of each keynote, he's been posting them on Linkedin so go check them out, and 5) Most importantly, it was abundantly clear that the future of experience design and research is bright and exciting.

Next year 7X will be in Auckland, NZ (https://www.aut.ac.nz/7xsummit) and I'm excited already. Experiences are part of individual and organizations lives. Experiences are how we interact with the world. The best way to make a dent in the world and improve the lives of all people is to train and empower more experience designers to go make the world a more intentionally designed place. It's work worth getting excited about.