Experiential Design

Experiential Design

As globalization occurs, Americans increasingly find that even white collar jobs are susceptible to elimination by outsourcing and new technology. Thus employees must identify what will keep them relevant in such a volatile corporate environment. The answer lies in transcending understanding the important roles individual experiences and emotions play in establishing a consumer’s perceived value for a product. The ability to effectively exploit such human factors requires cultural knowledge and creativity beyond that of computers and foreign workers. Experiential designers are those who use their personal creativity, ingenuity, and market knowledge to add value for the consumer by improving various aspects of consumer interaction and product design.

In becoming an experiential designer, one should first seek to influence the customer’s experience by creating a positive employee experience. The quality of employee experience directly translates into their level of emotional investment in a product or company. Emotionally invested employees are more likely to be consumers of the product they produce, and are therefore more capable of improving design and customer interactions. Google, for example, provides numerous recreational amenities and services for employees while also encouraging them to spend 20% of their work week on projects that interest them. Gmail and Google news are popular services that have developed out of this “20% time”.

Experiential designers ensure their product or company can be associated with some distinct culture or