Mindful Experience Design
The best experiences are designed with intention. This may sound obvious or abstract at face value, but oftentimes experiences ignore or misjudge the intentions and needs of the end-user. This miscommunication ultimately defeats the purpose of user experience, and confuses the user. By addressing the flaws in communication, we can focus more on intention— and send a purposeful, effective message to the user.
An important mistake a designer can make is not taking accurate measure of his audience. He may fundamentally misjudge who the user will be, or focus too narrowly on one small segment of the user base. Even if the correct user is considered in designing, it is difficult for designers to holistically understand who the user is. The variability of user personalities makes it hard to design an experience that is meaningful and achieves the same goals for every user. The danger for the designer is to become engaged in the process of design, and become attached to any singular prototype of who the user is. You may assume to know how this person thinks, and lock into this idea with vigor before realizing he is only a small percentage of your audience. This is particularly disappointing when you are married to an idea you think is a home-run. The result is a fantastic experience for the wrong people, or with the wrong intention.
This is the challenge of user experience design: identifying and understanding the people you are designing for, while maintaining an open mind. Excellent experience design demands clear understanding of the experience goals (or intention), as well as who the user is, and the surrounding context. Yet it needs mindfulness, empathy and agility throughout the design process to speak to its audience clearly. A designer must foster the desire to understand people and emotion; he must realize that the design process is iterative and never ending. Therefore, the best experiences are designed by students of human psychology and interaction.
I am purposely vague about what I mean by “Intention” above. Design should inherently be intentional. Every design decision should be supported by a clear understanding of who the user is and what and how you want them to feel. However, it is important to understand that users will have different intentions for the same product or experience. It is impossible to fully understand all of your end-users, but those who know this can create more meaningful experiences for users in general by being able to see facets of a problem that may not be considered. Traditional design starts with research, but research can’t end when sketching begins. Your understanding of who you design for and what you are designing must be agile. An open mind and focused intention must be maintained throughout the process. Research and strategize to understand the project goals and how you plan to get there. Sketch solutions to explore the problem and expose possible solutions. Start building off your sketches while maintaining an open-mind and being able to step-back and consider all the possible consequences to the decisions you have made. This is easier said than done. Below are some strategies for you can maintain intention and mindfulness throughout the design process.
Researching with intention requires an open mind. You may seek out to solve one problem, only to discover others along the way. It is essential to know you can only know so much, but the more you know, the better your design will be going forward. It is easy to uncover a problem and think you have a full understanding of what you need to design to fix it, but this is likely to limit your exploration and lead to a design that doesn’t solve the problem as good as it can be. Research should never end. When you go to do initial sketches you should keep your research and user scenarios in mind at all times. You should use your sketches not only to explore possible solutions, but also as an extension of your research. Take your sketches and test them with users. Listen to feedback on your ideas and leverage what you hear. Keep in mind who you are talking to and do your best to understand where they are coming from and what the underlying emotions are. Stepping back and considering all the factors of that feedback and who and where it is coming from and why and this will lead to a better understanding of the problem and ultimately a design that better address the project at hand.
Extend this mindfulness throughout all your iterations: from researching, to connecting, to sketching, to build. Never get married to an idea or become under the dilution that you completely understand the problem and your user. You can only ever understand so much, and an agile approach to your design process will allow for the best results. This is obviously not easy in the face of deadlines and budgets, but it is up to you to maintain empathy and intention throughout. This attitude can extend beyond the design process into all facets of life. If you are more mindful in your everyday actions it will become easier to empathize with your users in all of your designs. It will become easier to understand why you do what you do and why other people may do what they do. It takes practice and discipline to achieve this mindset. Like everything else it becomes easier and more natural the more you engage in the practice. Doing so will make you a better experience designer and may even lead you to feel more fulfilled as you go about your day-to-day.
