Experience Design

A professor structures a week of lessons and wonders if students will have the energy for Thursday’s material.

An architect plans a hallway turn and wonders how the lighting shift will affect residents.

An orator choreographs a speech, structured in escalating stages of emotionality and rhetorical power.

A dancer composes a solo piece and wonders what the audience will feel in the starting bars.

A sargeant stages a challenging exercise, wondering if it will pull the team together or splinter them apart.

A friend plans a birthday.

A shaman crafts a trance.

A curator walks an empty hall.

A mixologist thoughtfully sips an experiment, while a perfumer smells a novel rose.

A game designer places treasure in an obscure location and thinks fondly of those who wander, yet are not lost.

A blacksmith polishes a hilt for a discerning customer.

A pilot modulates her tone to welcome the passengers and crew.

A program shows Ender a mirror.

A courtesan gauges the weather, recalls the ballroom decor, and considers what to wear.

A host arranges seating and inspects the hallway colors before designing name cards.

A shopkeeper fills the shelves near an entryway with colorful jams and jars of reflective glass, then waits.

 

Thresholds

Layers

Transitions - curtain opens, digital and physical lobbies, clearing the table before desert, the pause between movements

Samples - breadcrumbs, foreshadowing, hints, teasers, samples in a grocery store

Continuity

Loops and circulation - the winding halls and constrained optionality of a museum or house party, the path around a lake or field in a park, the familiar neighborhoods and walking streets near one’s place of stay in a foreign country, the recurring themes

Hallways - the red carpet, approaching the deus, a marital procession, a funeral procession, approaching a front door on Halloween

Framing - the signage preceding an archeological site, the trailers, disclaimers, or first scene of a movie, the summary of a previous TV show episode preceding the latest, the summary of a previous fiction novel, the smiles and welcomes and safety demonstrations upon boarding an airplane, a window or hallway framing a view

Peaks and climax - a group photo on top of a mountain, the epic standoff near the end of a movie, the overwhelming height of a symphony, midnight at a New Year’s party

Tension, release, compression, expansion - musical syncopation, the use of consonance and dissonance, the suspense of a drama, flirtation, Frank Lloyd Wright’s sequential spaces, walking past the gargoyles and imposing doors of a cathedral and losing your breathe at the sight of the dome and rose window inside

Ladder of engagement - a game that matches the level with the development of player competency, the upgrades in abilities or equipment in the same game, the new terrain that becomes accessible, the various status levels of an airline or hotel proving corresponding upgrades, the stages of initiation and levels of membership in a fraternity, sorority, religion, club, or cult; and the implicit versions of all the same, not demarcated by a level, but effective as key changes in the game and increases in player engagement; a staged crescendo in or through several pieces of music

Challenge / ability ratio

Feedback loops and rates - notification of increased experience points in realtime, self-provided feedback when learning a new skill, grades and complements in school

System levels

Chaos and control - convergence and divergence

The Heroes Journey

Patterns of Transformation (splendid, inspirational research)

A Pattern Language

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Aesthetic Research