This is more in the form of an open question or discussion topic than a statement. Last year we were talking about the design of experience. A big issue these days is designing the user experience.

The term raises the question why it should not become 'theme park' design in which everything is sanitized, perfected and expected, and how the designers can avoid that. One could say that we should not be designing experiences anyway, but just isolated objects and graphic elements.

But there are lots of situations like airports, mass transit, hospitals that are— and need to be— fully designed systems. And the experiences are often horrible. That is the kind of experience design I am talking about— not necessarily shopping and entertainment.

We need to develop better ways of understanding what the use’s experience is going to be or should be.

As we understand the efficiency functions of negotiating everyday routines we should also think about delight (as in 'commodity and delight') and discovery. The trend is towards designing all experience, from products to visual communications, to environment to the web. Designers are involved in doing it all. So rather than ignore it, we should explore how we can contribute to the strategies that will make these aspects of our daily life more enriching and engaging.

We must think about some goals, ethics and rules of thumb to guide us as we participate in making these experiences.

For me, the main challenge has to do with an experience that grows and changes, that is a little different every time— just short of making it confusing so you miss your plane because you are having such a great experience. An experience where there is surprise, discovery and wonder. Where there is a routine but the routine is always slightly reinterpreted. Not perfection. An 'undesigned' example would be 'unofficial' musicians or performers in the subway or on the street.

Don't mall-ize everything. So, when designing a new subway system or an airport, usually highly controlled environments, add some surprise and delight. Make the journey a pleasure and/or an adventure.

Process can be part of this, a look behind the scenes. The work and process that goes on at an airport can be fascinating, yet airport designers are determined to veil the process and anesthetize us with annoying, mind-dulling entertainment and mall shopping. I like to watch the process— baggage, flight preparations, aeronautical engineering— all more fascinating than just another mall store. Tell us about the air traffic— how many planes are in the air at this moment.

This reminds me of Norman Bel Geddes' 'flying wing' air vehicle in which all the seats were looking out the leading edge of the wing. Amazing, perhaps terrifying, but not boring.

The same illumination of process could apply to trains, to show the workings the system and the flow the city. That is why the El in Chicago is so great. You see it all, and it is not sanitized.

Reveal, don't conceal. The design of experience will often involve the routines of daily life: commuting, leaving or returning home.

Use ways of understanding and getting inside the user's experience. The traditional studio methods in which formal compositions are created in the distanced studio and then plunked down in the situation sometimes work, but often do not become parts of people’s everyday lives. Lives that center on commuting, healthcare, shopping, getting gas, etc.

A big contribution would be to blend user research methods with a very rich studio process. Then you get situations that are very well planned from the users’ standpoint yet very rich experientially.

Random vectors can interact with the known to create the unknown, unexpected surprise. There is a crucial distinction between actors and real citizens. Spectacle is staged. The theme buildings in Las Vegas are interesting only for a couple of days because they are spectacle with no change. But the daily life of the city has a different kind of spectacle that is real— industrial steel plants and junk yards, for instance can be continuously entertaining. In fact, we seek these out in our neighborhood in Chicago for their entertainment value.

Here are some lessons for designers: engage users interpretive powers and show them their presence matters. Make places that honor and record their history, that wear their history well or leave evidence of the daily life through appropriate choices of materials, technologies and patterns of use. Leave room for the inefficiencies and eccentricities that create a drama of place, like a draw bridge over the Chicago River.

I love Chicago's Brown Line elevated train. As it creaks along its archaic wood structure, it almost falls of tracks, but we see the complexity of backyards— not public face, but we get much more a sense of what peoples lives really are like in the city.

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© 2000 High Ground Design. Reprinted from www.2011_highgrounddesign.com