EXPRESSO Tasting February 11, 2025
7am MST
Facilitators: Mat Duerden and Bob Rossman
Session 2. Design and Designerly Knowledge
There is a group of practitioners from the design field who also design experiences. We are not familiar with their way of thinking and their approaches to designing experience. Yolanda was a student in the School of Design and the Built Environment. We have never discussed an ongoing tension between notions of Design and notions of Experience. This session will focus on this issue.
Background:
Design, The Third Culture
Design is a discipline in its own right with a unique knowledge base and actionable processes that solve human problems. Quoted passages that follow are mostly from her dissertation although a few come from a new book by Bär and Boshouwers. Passages in italics are interpretations from Rossman and Duerden.
From Yolanda’s Thesis.
“Just as the sciences and humanities are recognisable by their unique knowledge, so too is Design (Cross 2001; Schon 1983). Science is concerned with theoretical knowledge developed through observation, measurement, hypothesis testing; the humanities are concerned with interpretive knowledge grounded in contemplation, criticism, evaluation, and discourse; Design is then positioned as concerned with practical knowledge built through sensibility, invention, validation, and implementation (Archer 1979, 20). Design separates itself through its focus on the human-made world, material culture, constructive inquiry, and use of graphical language (Cross, 1982). It is not proposed as a midpoint between science and humanities but as a distinct intellectual culture of its own (Nelson and Stolterman 2012);” pgs 35-36.
Designers possess or learn a designerly way of knowing. This is said to consist of “the ability to address ill-defined problems, the use of constructive thinking (i.e., the ability to define, redefine, and alter the problem as necessary throughout the design process), solution-focused problem solving, and communication via non-verbal graphical language (Cross 1982).” p 3
Designers believe their unique methodology is the key to experience design, literally designing experiences. (You can see Nathan Shedroff indicate his notion that experiences are everything in a speech given in Buenos Aires where he challenges Joe Pine’s notion of experience as a unique segment of the economy. He actually makes fun of Pine’s notion; it is worth your time to access this on You Tube. Nathan Shedroff, Bridging Strategy with Design; How Designers Create Value for Businesses. Access at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-HpMC1tCw Listen from 18:54 – 21:00. Short but informative.
This notion is so prevalent that in one of their most recent contributions, Eric Bär and Stan Boshouwers, WOW, Worlds of Wonder: Experience Design for Curious People. (Amsterdam: the Netherlands, 2018), the authors state: “The profoundly human tendency to bring people together and immerse them in a joint experience has never been systematically studied.” p 8
This is simply not true. There are volumes of work in interactionist sociology, the complete body of Erving Goffman’s work that was specifically dedicated to this purpose over a 30-year period, much of the work in leisure studies, and others.
Here are some other quotes from the Bär and Boshouwers book. They will illuminate this thinking.
“This book is about experience design. About creating spaces to inspire people and share stories.” 7
“The creators of these spaces have learnt how to immerse visitors, using architecture, theatrical techniques, interior design and any other approach that will help create the experience they envisioned.” 7
“The added value of experience design is that it activates participation in a remarkable story,” 28
Diana Slatterly quoted in WOW
“I would argue that immersion is primarily a quality of consciousness that has to do with the capture & control of attention, a necessary condition for any interpersonal persuasion education or entertainment to occur.” 29
“Experience design is a discipline that takes the end user experience as the starting point.” 32
All of this occurs in what the authors call an experience centre. Not really defined anywhere in text but there is a preoccupation with space and its design.
Other quotes. “Although people are, strictly speaking, also users of exhibition products, we prefer the term visitor in these spatial contexts. What we call experience design is linked to the user-oriented approach, crossing many disciplines and having an equal basis in the art of storytelling and theatre.” 34
XD Building Blocks according to Bär and Boshouwers. P 35
An invitation
A Story. The main reason for establishing an experience centre is usually a story that is so important that the person who knows or owns it wants to share it with the world.
A Place.
Visitors. They define visitors as followers, “people who come to you because your story interests them”. 35
Journey
Touchpoints
These quotes summarize designers’ foundational thinking and approaches. Other authors who use these methods are Nathan Shedroff, Darrel Rhea, and others.
CONTRAST THIS WITH THE APPROACH WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH. Experience Design wherein the principal driver is understanding experience from social science and humanities research.
Readings
Chapter 2, How the Formation of the Design Field Impacted It’s Subdisciplines, pgs 33-48
Chapter 12, Presenting the XD Stack, pgs 335—369
Chapter 13, Conclusion, pgs 371-376
Web Access to the Thesis is at: https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/95585
DISCUSSION POINTS
Can experience and experience design exist without design concepts and the abilities designerly knowledge contributes?
What do they contribute and how can they be integrated into our curricula?
Review and discuss the XD Stack. Is it a fully comprehensive representation of what needs to be included to practice experience design from end to end? How can we use it?
