What is an Experience?

In the field of psychology, experience can be seen as an emotion; in the field of business, experience is now one of the most critical economic means of a company. In the field of product and service design, experience is the “look and feel” of the product, a specific sensorial reflection of one’s interaction with the “man-made objects’’ and the context of the entire customer journey.

In short, experience is an event in which an individual responds to certain stimuli, consciously or unconsciously, including the overall essence of life. It is usually caused by the direct observation or participation of the event, whether it’s real, dreamy or virtual.

Experience is personal.

Even if multiple people are involved in the same event, they rarely have the exact same experience or emotion. If they were to recall their experience or retell it to others, no two people would express the same feelings towards the same event.

Experience is situational.

Experience is closely related to a specific situation. Under different circumstances, the experience is different; even if the same thing happens at different times and environments, the experience is different.

Experience is progressive.

In the process of continuous interaction with the environment, the experience is preserved, accumulated and developed over time. When the event ends, the memory will save it as an “experience” of the past, but continue to develop the experience of recalling it, retelling it to others and turning it into empirical knowledge of one’s own.

OK, so why does experience matter to a designer?

Speaking of the current consumer society, with no doubt, we have entered the “experience economy era”. With the improvement of living standards and a raised expectation of brands, on the basis of material products, consumers are more concerned about a feeling, a kind of emotional, intellectual and even spiritual personal experience of what they are paying for.

Therefore, we as designers should also consider ourselves as the experience creators, meaning we should not only excel in designing the forms and the functionalities of a product (both physical and digital), but also in the study of human emotions and psychological systems, so that the outcome of our design can communicate with people, stimulate positive feelings to become a wanted experience.