NOTES ON EXPERIENCE

notes

From the Doblin Group Zounds Project:

The Anatomy of Compelling Experiences

Great experiences seem to flow alike, consisting of three major stages and two transitions:

Attraction

It calls to you. You want to try it, watch it, play it.

Entry

As you enter the experience, you are removed from your everyday world.

Engagement

You are doing it, Feeling it, listening to it, smelling it, forgetting time.

Exit

As the actual doing of it ends, you rejoin your everyday life.

Extension

You want to share it, relive it. You collect programs, call a fellow traveler, search out similar experiences.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Six attributes

Likewise there emerged some patterns in the ways people described these experiences:

Defined

Do you know it? Can you describe it? Do the pieces hang together?

Fresh

Is it novel? A twist on something familiar? Can you make it your own? Does it startle, amaze, amuse?

Accessible

Can you try it? Work it? Get better at it? Get it to do what you want?

Immersive

Can you feel it? Does it engage you? Can you lose yourself in it?

Significant

Does it make sense? Does it make you remember?

Transformative

Do you feel different? Might others think you've changed? Do you want to tell someone about it? Do you have something to show for it?

Using This Research

1. Pick an experience, one you think is broken or one you are on the hook to design or one that is important in your life.

2. Gather some empirical evidence about the experience: What do people who are having the experience see, hear, smell, taste, touch? What do people feel, think, know, learn and want? Get some pictures of how it is or how you imagine it. Talk to people about it.

3. Analyze the experiences according to the stages described in part 1. Are there any gaps? Are there areas that are particularly thin or weak? If you had to experience only one phase, e.g., "Entry," would it be enough to make you go "wow"? What would make it work better?

4. Use the attributes in part 2 to evaluate the experience as a whole and also in each of the phases. What elements could you add to the experience to help it achieve the important characteristics?

5. Consider whether this model helped you at all. Which parts? Which parts weren't so helpful? Call us up or email us and let us know.

references

Gilmore, James H., & Pine II, Joseph.

The Experience Economy. 1999.

The Experience Economy (amazon US)

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Flow (amazon US)

urls

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Page last modified: 20/9/99