Experience architecture: A framework for designing personalized customer interactions

Design Management Journal,  Spring 2001  by Rose, David

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Transforming offline insights into compelling design

Retail professionals have spent decades learning how to craft sophisticated and manipulative environments, and salesmen know exactly what techniques drive someone to make a purchase. But there are also a host of others who are experts in influencing people, who, wittingly or not, are experts in the psychology of persuasion. For example, take the casino designer who knows that people stay longer when there aren't any clocks to remind them what time it is. Or the board-game creator who knows that players (especially children) have more fun when random disasters and rewards are distributed ("Pass Go and collect $200"). Or consider the church minister who understands how to build a strong community-by creating an array of roles for parishioners so that everyone feels a part of the group. All these people have insights into creating compelling experiences.

For the past two years, Viant has been interviewing these "experience experts" and sifting through offline experiences to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes them effective (See figures 7-12). In each case, the insight is added to a database of "experience patterns" (please note that the word pattern is used here in the uncommon sense of "model" or "archetype"). The purpose of this database is to allow designers to easily mine the insights of offline experts and create personalized experiences for specific audience segments.

In creating this database, the Viant team was inspired by Christopher Alexander, a city planner who in his seminal work, A Pattern Language (Oxford University Press, 1977), deconstructed towns, buildings, and public spaces into discrete units, such as House for One Person, Children's Home, and Dancing in the Street. For each unit, he provided a description of the essential elements, a kind of recipe. A successful Street Cafe, for example, includes "an established local clientele" and "a terrace open to the street," as well as 11 several other spaces" (so that a variety of people will start using the cafe and can separate into their own clusters). Although we are codifying the more vaguely defined world of "experiences," our pattern language, like that of Alexander and his colleagues, is also intended as a practical aid. Accordingly, we have woven business goals closely into our pattern language (appendix A), suggesting for each pattern the business goal it is likely to further.

Using business goals to select experience patterns

The next step in the experience architecture process is to find the patterns that match your business goals. When Viant redesigned the Compaq Computers site, users were segmented by intent. Segments were labeled Learn, Buy, Get, and Grow. (Buy labeled those who were choosing and ordering. Get referred to those who wanted to check on the shipping status of their order. The Grow segment was those who wanted updates or add-ons for previous purchases.) The business goal for the Learn segment was simply "to drive transactions." We wanted to keep people at the site so that they could learn about Compaq's offerings and be inspired to make a purchase.