There wasn’t a playbook for creating nascent experiences — until now
We’re ‘open-sourcing’ a way to evaluate novel user experiences
I wrote this article with assistance from Lauren Bedal. We spoke to leaders in innovation at Google across software and hardware products that work with different types and amounts of nascency everyday. I’m sharing what we learned.
- Do your users get stuck because they don’t understand a brand new concept in your UI?
- Does your team debate the roadmap for a new product because they can’t decide where to focus and what to build?
- Do you wrestle to design experiences because the tech didn’t exist before and there’s no point of reference?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re creating a nascent experience, and you’re not alone.
👋 Say hello to the nascent framework
Understand how cognitive gaps are affecting your products in ways you don’t even realize. The nascent framework is a collection of insights presented as actionable learnings that give you a structured way to understand and assess nascency in experiences with emerging technology, product iterations, or new populations and behaviours. It consists of:
The nascent framework will help you assess just how nascent the experience is, why it matters, and what to do about it so you can:
- Disambiguate ‘first use’ experiences and be more intentional with nascent provocations, or product-market fit
- De-risk innovation on the path to landing your nascent experience with key audiences like end users, team members, or stakeholders
Similar to the People + AI Guidebook or Design Sprints, the value is realized by using the tools.
Different from the myriad of ‘first use’ principles and design patterns that exist today, the nascent framework is agnostic of process. Regardless of your role, you can dynamically apply it to enable ‘fresh thinking’ across the product life cycle to:
- Analyze aspects of an experience to see what’s new and why
- Understand and reframe ‘newness’ based on audience
The framework in 30 seconds
- New experiences are made up of different elements.
- Each element may have a different amount and type of nascency.
- Elements can be combined in different ways to create experiences that are more complex, new, and innovative than others.
- The audience’s cognitive starting point and prior lived experiences provide the baseline for determining how nascent the experience is.
- Knowing how ‘new’ an experience is, and what makes it new, can help you better understand what makes it hard to solve for and hard for people to use. This is what makes the nascency framework unique.
What we learned about nascency
All ‘first use’ experiences are nascent, to some degree, but not all nascent experiences are equal. We synthesized 150+ collective years of “uncommunicable wisdom”, from leaders in innovation at Google across software and hardware products, into usable insights.
Nascent experiences cause cognitive gaps that impact the audience and the product creation process in different ways. For example, a new context affects a user differently than a completely new way of interacting.
It’s hard to make nascent experiences that feel intuitive because they tend to deviate far from the audience’s cognitive starting point.
What‘s a nascent experience?
- A new product feature in the UI
- Novel input modalities to engage with a screen
- Someone interacting for the first time
- Feelings that the person hasn’t felt in that context prior
These are all types of nascent experiences, but they provide an incomplete picture. People provide the cognitive starting point for the experience. Your audience’s cognitive starting point and prior lived experiences provide the baseline for determining how nascent the experience is. The ‘cognitive delta’ is the amount of nascency and determines where there could be potential for friction in the experience.
1. Elements of nascent experiences
Nascent experiences are made up of different elements. There are eight. They all play unique roles in the experience.
Elements that relate to perception
Concept or field
- Abstract idea that manifests into, or is defined by, other elements: content, input modality, tech or tool, context, or combination
- No direct comparable user experience or mental model
- E.g. An idea to enable users in emerging markets to buy groceries through a chat app instead of going to the store
User type
- The person interacting that’s not the original intended primary audience, but now becomes the main user
- Someone interacting with the experience for the first time that is the intended audience
- Provides the cognitive baseline for the experience that will determine how new the experience is
- E.g. A grandparent using Nintendo Wii bowling for the first time
Emotions
- Feelings that emerge from an experience that the user hasn’t felt in that context prior
- Often determined by other nascent elements
- May determine and influence overall user value (i.e. negative emotions detract and positive emotions add to the user benefit)
- E.g. A feeling of range anxiety that may result when road tripping with an all electric vehicle
Elements that manifest as the interaction
Content
- Anything user-facing that guides the user through an experience
- Often determined and denoted by the system, product category, or the user input behaviour
- E.g. A new feature on a music app that now offers podcasts or audio books
Input behaviour
- Mechanism for how the user interacts with the system
- May require that the user learns a new interaction(s)
- Often enabled by technological innovations
- E.g. A new paradigm on Microsoft Kinect to engage with a screen that opened up the possibility for full body interaction
Tech or tool
- Physical form factor or underlying software that supports the experience (inclusive of hardware and software)
- Often helps to determine functionality of the system and user input behaviour
- May be user-facing, or hidden to the user, but must provide user value
- E.g. QR code tech that enabled users to access digital content via a UI or the physical world
Elements that reshape experiences
Combination
- Two or more existing experiences, or nascent elements, that merge to create an overall new experience
- E.g. A smartwatch that brings together touchscreen technology and a watch form factor
Context
- An existing experience, or nascent element, placed in a different scenario
- E.g. A RFID card used in transit passes that is reappropriated for use as a hotel room key
Let’s look at an example
Imagine a music app that used to be just about music but then added podcasts. But podcasts and how to browse, play, and subscribe to them is a very familiar paradigm in other experiences. Much of what the music app did is port that paradigm into their app. Is that nascent?
The short answer: It depends on your audience.
The long answer: New content, like podcasts, will likely be much more familiar and easier to understand (for people that have experience with podcasts). That means the experience will be less nascent if similar podcast interaction paradigms are used, and if the users have mental models established that they can relate to. Intentionally leveraging familiar experiences can help minimize potential for user friction when new content and features launch.
How nascent is it?
Each element of the experience may have a different amount of nascency. Different elements shape nascent experiences but some result in more new and innovative experiences.
2. Types of nascency
There are three types of nascency. They connect the elements of the experience to the audience’s cognitive starting point and reveal the ‘cognitive gap’, so you know how nascent it is.
Less nascent elements or experiences, like ‘combining or reshaping’, are closely aligned to the audience’s cognitive starting point. That means it’s more familiar to the audience.
More nascent elements or experiences, like ‘conceptual shifts’, deviate farther from the user’s cognitive starting point. That means it’s less familiar to the audience. There could be more potential for friction in the experience.
Elements can be mixed in different ways to create overall experiences that are more or less nascent. The combination of elements influences that overall experience. The cognitive baseline is the starting point for determining how nascent the element or experience is, and why.
There are different types of nascent experiences and the elements make each one uniquely new and novel.
Combine or reshape existing experiences
- Appropriation of existing experiences into new contexts
- Taking an experience that was known, a familiar thing, and placing it in an unfamiliar context.
- Well-established mental models with existing expectations of use and interaction paradigm(s)
- Some new capabilities that build mostly on prior tech
- More familiar and less nascent (less potential for user friction)
Evolution (small or large) of known experiences
- Small extension or large expansion via new tech into known contexts
- Discovering new opportunities to expand experiences with technology, rather than optimize what exists.
- Some pre-existing mental models with some shift in expectations of use and interaction paradigm(s)
- Some / a lot of new capabilities via new tech
- Less familiar and a bit / quite nascent (moderate / high potential for user friction)
Conceptual shift into unknown experiences
- Invention at societal level via experiential unknowns
- Introducing a new concept at that societal level that is unfamiliar in experience and context.
- No comparable mental models with major shift in paradigms and expectations of use
- World expanding’ capabilities that likely has major new tech
- Very unfamiliar and nascent (most potential for user friction)
Let’s look at an example: smartwatch
What was it innovating on? Was it a new concept? Not really because we already had smartphones. It’s really just a combination of touch screen interaction paradigms most people are very familiar with and the mental model of a watch (they’ve been around for hundreds of years). That makes it less new and not very nascent, for most people.
What about new tech? It mostly builds on prior touchscreen technology that existed previously. Only now it’s miniaturized.
What about new features? The majority of content is ported from the smartphone but there were some new capabilities from this combination. For example, the heart rate monitor feature is possible now because the tech and sensors touch your skin, they aren’t in your pocket. They’re in a new context.
3. A framework to determine nascency
The interplay between user perception and the interaction determines nascency. This can change over time based on the user’s frame of reference.
Let’s look at all the elements combined in the framework. This will help you understand: What makes the experience new? It also gives you signal on how new the experience might be and why.
For example, different combinations of nascent elements may result in an experience that offers people new capabilities. Different nascent elements may also shape emotions and how people experience the product. If some, or all of the elements of the experience are completely new, than people may need to establish new mental models to have an intuitive experience.
Unless your intention is to disrupt or be provocative (speculative design is a great example of this), these are things you should consider. Really nascent elements in your experience could potentially feel foreign to your audience. When that happens the likelihood for user friction goes up. It’s important to know when, where, and why there are nascent elements so you can adjust the experience accordingly.
Questions to consider based on nascency:
- Is there a way to shape the experience to feel less foreign, and more familiar, to reduce potential for user friction?
- Are the nascent elements the right ones for the experience, or is there a gap and a product opportunity for a better fit?
- Do you need to make elements of your experience more nascent to make the most of the experience?
Knowing how ‘new’ an experience is helps you understand what makes it hard to solve for and to use.
The three nascent types can exist independently in an experience, or in combination. It depends on the elements in the experience, and how new they are for the audience.
For example, a nascent experience can be the appropriation of a familiar thing in unfamiliar context, or there can be hybrid options that both introduce new tech, as well as change the meaning of something that already exists.
Each distinct nascent type is innately more ‘new’.
This ‘newness’ applies to the product creators, as well as the people experiencing the product for the first time. That means any experience that overall feels like a ‘conceptual shift’ is significantly more nascent than ‘reshaping or combining’. As a result it will be perceived as more novel than other types of nascent experiences.
Today, the value of determining what’s nascent and why is a ‘blindspot’ in the creation process. The nascent framework makes this visible.
It won’t tell you how to make your experience.
It doesn’t tell you if it will be successful or not.It will help you identify and evaluate the experience.
It can tell you where potential for risk and opportunity could be.The nascent framework is not a recipe, it’s a thermometer.
Use it as a way to gauge — a temperature check — for where you are,
so you can plan what to do and where to go next.
Three ways you can start using the nascent framework
- Deconstruct the nascent elements in your experience
Identify and define each new element that exists in the experience. It’s ok to leave some blank, or have multiples. - Use the types of nascency to tell you how nascent it is
Map all the elements, from least to most nascent. It’s ok if there’s differing opinions. The goal is to provoke thought and discussion. Start with nascent elements that relate to ‘input behaviour’ or ‘tech or tool’. - Create a nascent overview with the framework
Combine all the thinking from the elements and types of nascency into one ‘snapshot’. Reflect and discuss: What makes the experience new? How new are the capabilities and the mental models? Write two sentences to summarize the concept, user value, how nascent the experience is, and why.
Pro-tips
- Gather a couple of teammates from different disciplines and think through this together.
- Define your target audience upfront so everyone is using the same ‘cognitive baseline’.
- Do the same steps above, but with market competitors. Try different audiences too: end users, teammates, stakeholders.
Why you should start using the nascent framework
The nascent framework is a people-first approach to the process of creating new experiences. It anchors on the cognitive starting point of the audience. Classically, innovation has been technology led. The nascent framework is a unique opportunity to bridge the tech-human void that has been the undercurrent of cross-functional innovation — until now.
Enjoyed this post? Give us some 👏!
Thanks to everyone who contributed to our nascent framework. We think it’s a big step forward in the product creation process, but far from the last one.
