UXmatters: Towards a definition of experience design and a definition of customer experience

The April issue of UXmatters magazine is out and Dirk Knemeyer has written an article titled “Defining Experience: Clarity Amidst the Jargon“.

The word experience has gained significant traction over the past 15 years. Beginning with the mainstreaming of the term user experience in the software industry and, later, extended to the work of marketing professionals who began thinking about marketing as being experiential, the idea of experience as a focused professional area of endeavor is alive, well, and growing rapidly. However, the more our space grows, the more confused and chaotic is our collective understanding of the meaning of these terms. To try to help clarify this murkiness, I want to share my definitional model for the fields of experience and provide guidelines for the use of various terms.

This is an important step forward towards better definitions of the various terms in the field of designing experiences. After reading the article you will realize that one term is missing: customer experience. Since my blog is titled “The Customer Experience Labs” I feel obliged to add a definition for this term.

Customer Experience refers to all touchpoints people have from the moment they are aware of a need until they have fulfilled the need or reached a certain goal. While Brand Experience offers an “inside-out” perspective with a scope that is defined through the organization’s boundaries, Customer Experience takes an “outside-in” perspective and recognizes that there are more actors (organizations) involved when a customer is striving to reach a certain outcome.

One example:

Imagine you are planing your next flight and you will realize that there are more than a few different actors involved. You might have booked your ticket on a travel website like Expedia (Actor #1). You will have to arrive by train, bus or taxi (Actor #2). After arriving at the airport you have to find your check-in counter, check-in and kill time in one of the restaurants, bars or shops at the airport (Actor #3). When boarding the plane you have the first interaction with the airline (Actor #4) and after landing you interact with the destination airport (Actor #5) and public transportation to reach your destination (Actor #6).

All these interactions with different actors influence the Customer Experience. Organizations that adopt the customer’s point of view and look beyond the current organizational boundaries are able to create truly remarkable experiences. All these independent organizations can optimize their Brand Experience, but only by understanding the overall context in which customers are interacting them, an organization can become an “synchronized” actor in the system and remarkable Customer Experiences can be created.

Is it different from User Experience? Yes, since it is not just one specific design but all the experiences that a user (or customer) has in order to fulfill a need.

Is it different from Brand Experience? Yes, since it is and “outside-in” perspective from the customer’s point of view.