Creating the Space for Experiential Design
Exploring why design matters and how to shape the experiences you create.
By Molly Sutherland, Designer @ Thoughtium
Published July 2022
Chex mix competitions, farm relay races, watermelon seed spitting contests, and badminton brackets. These were just some of the defining elements of my family reunions growing up. It always my favorite weekend of the year, so when my family hosted, we were all in — because that’s the experience I had grown to know and love. I built a website with a hype video to build anticipation, my brothers and I spent hours putting together witty presentations to explain competitions, my mom planned a full family dinner on the lawn, we had bins for each family to keep track of their things, we made snack and hydration stations, the list goes on. When I look back on that long weekend I am so appreciative of those months of planning because what I remember is sharing meals with my cousins, laughing until my face hurt, too many late night card games —I remember a truly incredible experience.
Experiential design has a lot of meanings: you may think of interior design, or the design of a beautiful product, or the way that we interact with things and technology on a day-to-day basis. But here at Thoughtium, we define experiential design as the art and science to creating an experience.
As a graphic designer, I’ve found experiential design not only incredibly influential in my life , but also crucial to my design practice. I love figuring out how best to convey information in a strategic and aesthetic way. But taking it a step beyond into experiential design, is where my creativity truly thrives. Because the experience in which you are exposed to that design matters. I can design a beautiful presentation deck, but it will quickly fall flat if the environment and facilitation are not designed intentionally for the audience. Experiential design is being intentional in shaping the whole experience.
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Learn how to step into experiential design from industry leaders.
And it’s not just me. Experiential design matters more today than ever before. It informs where people spend their money: 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience (Web FX). It informs how businesses differentiate themselves: 70% of CEOs see user and customer experience as a competitive differentiator (Userzoom).
Since joining the Thoughtium team, I’ve seen — and experienced — how integral experiential design is to our clients and community every day: from the Accelerator experience to our Create the Space dinners to our internal team quarterly retros. Let’s dive into some of our key approaches to great experiential design.
Be relentless in human-centric design.
I joined Thoughtium with nearly a decade of design experience, but with starting any new job, I was nervous. Would I fit in with the team? Would I contribute meaningfully? Would I feel part of something? I was shocked at how quickly I answered yes to these questions. The intentionally designed onboarding process allowed me to feel connected to each team member, see how my work and role fit into the vision of Thoughtium, and contribute in meaningful ways — all within my first two weeks.
That is the power of human-centric design, understanding your audience deeply in order to design based on their needs. Being relentless in human-centric design calls us to go beyond adding 1–2 general best practices and dive deep into understanding your specific audience and their needs at this moment.
A great place to start in designing any experience is with Empathy Mapping. A simple tool that helps you better understand your audiences’ behaviors and attitudes, so you can make design decisions with their perspective at the forefront.
Interactive daily design toolkit
This toolkit walks you through four practices to help build your creative confidence, get to know your user, and uncover the hidden layers of design.
Create space for the design process.
As a designer, I spend hours on hours within any given project. And many times I am so close to a project that it is hard to see beyond what I’ve already created. Recently, I was working on a project related to our Accelerator offering and after weeks of designing and a couple rounds of feedback, I thought we had the final product ready. But when we brought in a larger team to test it out, they experienced it differently than I had designed. That simple act of bringing people in for testing made it a much better product in the end.
This was the reminder I needed to create space for the design process. The design process is a collaborative and iterative process that helps you to empathize with your audience, ideate around innovative solutions, and test your products.
Bring this into your work by intentionally creating space for the process. Capitalize on the collective by inviting people into your ideating and testing phase so you avoid designing in a vacuum.
Uncover the hidden layers of design.
Last month, I was honored to attend one of Thoughtium’s quarterly Create the Space dinners, a highly curated experience for leaders to learn and grow together. From the flow of the evening, to the loosely structured, yet organic conversation, to the guests present, to the meal at the table — it felt like everything was taken into account. I walked away feeling connected to community, hopeful from the authentic conversations, and inspired creatively.
The hidden layers of design were uncovered that evening — and it made for all the more impactful experience. The different layers of inclusivity, engagement and impact are crucial to consider when designing an experience. Exploring each layer helps to create a more holistic and fulfilling experience for all.
To uncover a more intentional experience, ask yourself how you are designing for inclusivity, engagement and impact through each of the major avenues of experiential design: time, space and people.
Looking back now, I can see how those summer family reunions fostered my creativity and love for design. But at the time it was just the best weekend of the year — full of connection, laughter and fun. Experiential design is an opportunity for us to bring that type of wonderment into our work. Let’s all spend some time recalling those experiences that shaped us as children and create the space for designing our own intentional and rich experiences.
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