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)
Exploratory, progressive, cyclical
Magic circle
repetitive
accute
dramatic
