The Experience Shift: Report and Manifesto now live
The Experience Shift is an ongoing, open source research project exploring the future of immersive experience design in light of the upheaval brought about by COVID-19.
The Research Project
Instigated by Narrative Design studio, House of Cultural Curiosity (HoCC), the project is a call to collaboratively reframe how we think about designing experiences;
in terms of how we relate to each other as audience members, creatives and clients
how we relate to institutions, spaces, stimuli and platforms
and how we relate to the tacit, cultural imperatives which gives context to our behaviour
Over the last 18 months, the pandemic has triggered big changes for this sector and accelerated the pre-existing, exponential pace of change brought by factors like the explosion in technological possibilities. These have all had a huge impact on the needs of audiences who are hungry for stimulus, as well as how we - as designers of experiences - meet these needs in a conscious, considered manner. As the project’s founder, Sophie Shaw said “In a period of discontinuous change, trend-forecasting on it’s own feels like playing darts in the dark; it also misses an opportunity to think more deeply about how we want our sector to be in the future. There’s real potential right now to think about the kind of roles we want designed experiences to have in our societies and the impact we want them to have on our culture.” The Experience Shift is a vehicle for conscious, creative change to all aspects of designed experiences.
For this process to have impact it can’t be done in isolation. In this spirit, the project centres on inviting others in, to explore this territory collaboratively so all benefit from the breadth of the sector’s skills and experience and build momentum for moving forward.
From the outset, self-selected project participants stepped forward to take part in group and individual conversations, from institutions like Tate and the Natural History Museum, creative studios such as Thought Den, Sound Intermedia and Yonder Beyond, academics and thought leaders from University California Davis, School of Experience Design, Central Saint Martins and the New Citizenship Project.
Themes explored
The conversations started with a theme on Creative Constraints and looked at the immediate imperatives brought by the pandemic. How is our relationship to touch changing, what are the implications? Do we need new tools for forging connections? Headline insights included how we think about safety, can we bring safety-as-experienced into the conversation about access and inclusion? As Allison Walker from Narrative Threads said, “Safety is always crucial. I think that it’s not just about physical safety but also about psychological safety as well”.
The second theme, Flexing Boundaries, explored the power and potential of immersive experience. Do we rely too heavily on what an experience looks like from the outside? What roles do we give our audiences? What emerged was a strong connection between creating space for people to be creative and their ability to put themselves in an active relationship with a subject. This is a powerful insight for brands and institutions who want to build a community around their mission. Neil McConnon, Director of International Partnerships at Tate said, “Experiences can become more normalised, not so focused on spectacle, but akin to tools that enable us to encounter environments that allow opportunities to reflect, stimulate and engage in meaningful ways.”
The third theme, Rethinking the Design Process, focused on how we come together to build experiences. In a sector that is growing and innovating fast, our processes haven’t been keeping up. As Creative Producer, Sheena Patel said, “the current disconnect between creative technologists and practitioners means that we are not currently benefiting from a number of tools and skills that could be repurposed”. We need to develop and establish distinct processes for experience design, including new ways to bring teams together and win work, as well as a dynamic design process for the making of work.
Read the full Report
The full suite of insights yielded by the live research phase are captured in The Experience Shift report, packed with solutions and new ways of thinking for 2022 and beyond. The first consequence is a Manifesto, inviting a new way of seeing, working, creating and hosting designed experiences.
Sign and share the Manifesto
The Experience Shift now invites anyone with an interest in the sector to consider the resulting Manifesto as a tool to help power the shift across experience design. Sign to show commitment and share to help realise a richer future for experience design; a new way of working that reflects a changing world. Project founder, Sophie Shaw said "Complex change requires numerous shifts by all the participating actors. The old ways of working are restricting creative opportunity and limiting impact on the end user audience, who have never needed meaningful connection more. The Manifesto is a tool anyone can use to frame conversations within teams, with clients, with communities, with budget holders. It's a prompt to power the shift."