The Importance Of Experience Design

Experience Design is a relatively new field of design that still has yet to be explored in depth. It is hard to narrow down what exactly Experience Design is. This seems to be a common theme amongst Experience Designers in their attempt to explain what exactly it is that they do. I read through numerous case studies, books, articles, journals, etc. and never came across a clear definition that fit my understanding of Experience Design, much like most others that have written on this topic. Fifteen years ago, Nathan Shedroff, who is considered a pioneer of experience design, interaction design, and information design, wrote in his introduction to Experience Design 1 that “Experience Design as a discipline is so new that its very definition is

What’s important is what you do leads to a better experience.” (Grannell,

Hassenzahl gives a great example of by referencing Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In this story, Charlie finds the coveted Golden Ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory along with four other lucky winners. He is promised a "mystic and marvelous surprises that will entrance, delight, intrigue, astonish, and perplex beyond measure. In your wildest dreams you could not imagine that such things happen to you!"(Dahl, 1964). Charlie is faced with a tough decision because he is very poor and his family could really use the money he was being offered for his ticket. In the end, Charlie chooses the experience over the money and has the experience of a lifetime. (Hassenzahl, 2010) So why do most people prefer experiences to materialistic items? In the words of IDEO’s chief executive Tim