"The Experience Architect"

Tom Kelley mentions that one role of the Experience Architects is to never forget that giving something special to costumers is both good business and good karma. What they do is look for things that are negative, and then tune them. They ask, “Is this ordinary or extraordinary?” Then they figure out how to turn the ordinary into something distinctive and better. When they are designing, they shouldn’t be complex or expensive. They should have in mind that they want the costumers and businesses to buy a product or visit the place more often. They ask themselves what is important to the costumer in order to find “trigger points,” which is finding the success of making things better. Fixing the problem or designing a great experience using the trigger points can be rewarding, because the costumers get to gain an experience from the new design of something. Experience Architects are suppose to have the patience to see what other can’t see and draw a new concept that can help them map out their costumer’s journey, because it helps make a difference in the marketplace. In order to improve those weak spots of a business, they suggest the improvement of packaging, the merchandizing, and the fixtures, work on the tables, displays, lights, and graphics.

Whatever the new design is, it needs to be a visceral design, because it should be appealing to a costumer, because the whole reason they try to make things better is to draw more costumers. In most cases, they need to be behavioral design, because they need to satisfy the costumers’ needs, or what they think they need, and make them need it. Packaging can be reflective, but even though it is something they target, it is not the main point of re-designing something and making it better for the costumers. What is different is they focus on the small details of making something better in order to change the costumers’ journeys and experience when they visit the place and purchase things.

The cafeteria in Hicks Center should have a food contest, since people don’t like to eat there most of the time. Or they can have theme days. They can put little umbrellas on peoples’ drinks, which gives that Hawaiian theme. They can give out goody bags with cool things, like key chains or little prizes, and they can have raffles every week.