The CX design wheel

OK, it does feel as though we’re swimming in models and templates that tell us how to design customer experiences. Do we need any more?

Yes and no.

Through my consultancy work, I’ve often been asked to come up with key design principles or express the factors that influence customer experiences.

I must admit, I’ve not really found one model that fits the bill for me. Whilst there are models out there, some of them are either too simplistic, too complicated, don’t fully bridge the digital and physical, or address both the rationale and emotional drivers of experience.

Why having a usable set of design principles is, well, useful.

Delivering product and service experiences that meet individual customer needs and expectations, at scale, requires a level of design and service implementation that remains a challenge for most organisations.

Understanding what drives value for your customers when interacting with your products and services is key and so establishing a set of design principles can be useful to help guide design work.

The UX Honeycomb is one of the best, but it has its limitations

One of the most useful models I’ve found is Peter Morville’s User Experience Honeycomb.

Morville’s UX Honeycomb rightly puts the objective of being ‘valuable’ at the heart of the target experience, with usability, usefulness, desirability, findability, accessibility and credibility acting as the key drivers. It brings together the key factors that influence service experience and have been the bedrock of UX design for more than 15 years.

However, whilst the honeycomb expresses factors such as ‘utility’ and ‘access’ extremely well, it is a model focused on digital UX and so doesn’t explicitly call out other key drivers that I’d like to see in a set of design principles for a broader definition of CX beyond the scope of UX.

You could of course argue that emotional value drivers are included intrinsically in Morville’s model, in areas such as ‘credibility’ and ‘desirability’, however, for standard design exercises, I also think it’s helpful to call out these emotional drivers as well, such as ‘empathy’.

Therefore, I believe that we can add six extra facets in the form of: controllable, viable, predictable, reliable, responsible and empathetic, which I’ll come on to explain.

Introducing the Experience Principles Wheel

The Experience Design Principles Wheel includes 12 experience drivers clustered around four experience groups, shown in the frameworks below:

Here, in table form:

How the Wheel works…

Let’s start with Expectations, Perceptions and Value.

Our perception of experiences always start with ‘expectations’.

Customers and users come to your product or service with a whole set of expectations formed from the outcome of other interactions, experiences, personal values and needs, so it is important to call this out as part of the design process. Those expectations will have a direct impact on how you apply the principles to your design work.

As we interact and experience a brand, its products and services, ‘perceptions’ are formed, ultimately resulting in the customer or user making a ‘value’ assessment.

Ultimately, we are aiming to deliver an experience that they value and therefore see benefit in returning to. Value can be derived from emotional, financial, social or functional reward (see Jean Baudrillard and value theory) — therefore if an experience has value it will contribute to brand salience and increase the likelihood of that product or service being used again, recommended to others, or considered when a relationship review is triggered

Now the 12 experience drivers…

Having 12 principles as part of any design model may seem a lot, however, by having each as a visible element, we can identify the principles that are most relevant to deliver the experience customers and users expect from the brand.

For products and services to deliver great experiences, they need to have…

a. Utility (can I use it?)

Useful — it has clear purpose, that is well understood.

Usable — it can be used without any prior knowledge, requires the minimum possible steps to complete and has no dead ends or doom loops.

Controllable — it enables you to use it in your own time, work in a way that is familiar and fits user norms and responds to changing circumstances.

b. Accessibility (can I access it?)

Inclusive — accessible and useable by everyone, equally and unbiased to race, gender or sexual orientation

Findable — easy to find

Viable — priced fairly and representative of the product or service offered; if there’s a transfer of data in the transactions, rather than cash then it’s an acceptable trade, and the transaction experience is positive.

c. Dependability (can I depend and rely on it?)

Reliable — it’s consistent through, reliable and doesn’t expose organizational silos

Predictive — user expectations of the service are set; they know where in the process they are, what happens next and how to get help if needed. They are also apply context and history to make the experience more personally relevant.

Credible — it’s trustworthy and transparent, with a clear reason for the policies and decisions clearly explained and understood. It encourages the right behaviours from users and providers, and delivers against promise.

d. Heart (do I feel a connection with it?)

Responsible — demonstrates awareness and understanding of the wider responsibilities to society and the environment. It gives a sense of belonging, the customer using the product or service feels included, and it functions within regulatory or legal norms

Desirable — it indulges the senses, is attractive and intuitively designed.

Empathetic — it is responsive to the likely emotional state of the customer/user and is designed to prompt a positive state of mind.

I hope you find it useful. I’d love to hear what you think.