What is Experience Design? Quiz

Recently, I've had the privilege of mentoring a couple of young designers that are aspiring to be experience designers. They desire to build a well-rounded skill set that allows them to connect with brand, research, product design, & technical development teams, and to be a part of seeing product designs implemented. Their organizations are not even familiar with the term experience design.

They sense what a lot of other designers are sensing. There are noticeable gaps between the traditional research, design, and technical disciplines in the R&D process. There always has been, but the gaps are widening, in part because the accelerating change of technologies that dictate What Is Possible is far outpacing the ability of traditional design methods to keep up.

Once you have gone through a long, tough, real-world slog in any area of the R&D process, you can't unknow it. Especially dev or manufacturing implementation. You have the scars. With those scars comes a greater awareness of the gaps in the system. And it's difficult for smart, hard-working individuals to abstain from attempting to fill those gaps.

I've also recently had a number of stakeholders & hiring managers ask me to clarify what it is exactly that I do. They are trying to understand where an experience designer fits into their operational model.

So, I'm here to help! It's my design kumbaya moment. Since I learn best with visuals & snackable info, I thought I'd create a little map & this quiz to help people understand what it is that experience designers do & the value we provide.

Don't @ me if you don't read the whole thing!

1. Experience designers evolved from...

a. Prehistoric anteaters the size of food trucks.

b. Traditional designers responding to tech revolutions.

c. The mold on leftover Little Caesar's pizzas in dorms of college students.

d. Please don't ask us to look up and to the left.

Correct answer: B! Emerging technologies have erased the lines between the traditional areas of design and necessitated that designers think about their output differently in order to accommodate new possibilities. Emerging technology has also enabled traditional designers to augment their skill set and still create high quality deliverables that are not "hybrid" output.

2. The design of a holistic experience includes:

a. An audience with the Dalai Lama.

b. A dark retreat.

c. Expectations & interactions.

d. Stock options & a bro-branded Patagonia jacket.

Correct answer: C! An experience includes both expectations (what a customer perceives will happen) and interactions (what actually happens as a user). One of the primary goals of experience design is make the interactions (the offering) match the expectations (the promise). This creates the positive cycles that result in die-hard core customer groups.

3. Experience designers focus on....

a. Helping the ID team design factories.

b. Conspiring with digital designers to hijack the term "product design".

c. Designing vacations & honeymoon packages.

d. Connecting research, brand, and product design output to improve the harmony between the different customer & user touch points that are being designed.

Correct answer: D! (Although it would be fun to take a wild swing at C.) I have had younger designers ask if they need to have real-world experience in all possible elements of a designing & implementing an experience. Well, it certainly doesn't hurt, but I wouldn't wish the results of my very purposeful, design role bar-hopping career path on anyone. The best intentions. Sigh. Better to focus on digital or physical experiences for now. Even saying aloud that you can do both makes people their pants.

4. An experience designer is...

a. A design specialist.

b. A generalist.

c. A hot mess in a dumpster fire.

d. A hybrid designer.

Correct answer: A! We specialize in the design of experiences. My peers are correct when they say that all designers are experience designers in some fashion. Engineers & developers are part of experience creation, too. XDers are capable of filling other specialized roles, but we'd rather not.

5. Experience designers are valuable because....

a. Companies can't possibly be expected to pay all those different types of designers.

b. Customers & users don't discern between different types of experience touch points.

c. Someone has to make the coffee and Gen Y employees are refusing to do it. (Can you blame them? Whaddya expect when you crap all over the planet we live on & then hand it off to the next generation? A nice fruit basket?)

d. They can bring together the socially awkward groups of designers & engineers at holiday parties.

Correct answer: A! The learning, buying, & using process has become so compressed that it's just a single experience for people. If one facet of the experience sucks, then it all sucks. Experience designers are the user & customer advocates throughout the entire experience.

6. Within an operational structure, experience designers...

a. Piss everyone off by swerving across lanes like a highway trooper getting ready to pick up debris off the road.

b. Work in between upstream strategy teams & downstream implementation teams.

c. All your base are belong to us.

d. Require new positions be created to accommodate our hopes & dreams.

Correct answer: C! Jk. But extra credit if you get it. B is what you want to go with here. If you're an HR specialist, you can think of an experience designer as a UX or CX designer that has work experience or learned skills that give them the ability to work & empathize with team members that are upstream or downstream from them with upgraded efficacy & efficiency.

Given the evolving nature of the design field, it is also HIGHLY likely that different organizations are going to refer to roles that are a great fit for XDers by names other than Experience Design. And some XDers will fit better in roles that are more upstream in Brand & CX territories, and some will better fit in roles that are more downstream in the Product Design & Implementations zones.

6. Experience designers can:

a. All of the below.

b. Cross-reference customer & user research with business goals to create ideas & concepts that are measured in cost/benefit and impact/effort matrices.

c. Construct MRDs & PRDs that are based upon legit customer- & user-centered research and not an idea someone's partner had over the weekend.

d. Provide focus for the creation of VBLs & VDLs by brand & product designers based upon qualitative research and not "gut feelings".

Correct answer: A! It's a TLDR multiple choice question. It is important to note that experience designers are connectors, and connecting research & design to technologies and business goals is part of our work.

Have a lovely day! You're welcome!