Interested in the nitty gritty of how it is we craft the thresholds of our experiences?
Our next run of Designing Experiences for Radical Imagination launches February 18th. Join our virtual retreat for 8 weeks of immersive workshops, collaborative open studios, laughs, visual lusciousness, and participatory worldbuilding.
We’ll marry the rigor and the magic of experience design.
This is for you. If you build things for humans.
Boundaries.
It’s been the word of the year. For many years. For many of us.
My brain is always seeking the visual picture to make sense of the words we have. Perhaps yours is too.
So it sees walls. The fortifications we build. What stays out. What is protected, here, inside.
Boundaries as the creation of separation. And with it, distance. I’m over here. Safe. And that thing, that behavior, that person, is over there.
And…
I think of experience design as the creation of containers. Spacial, emotional, temporal, behavioral. And for containers to exist, they must have edges. Thresholds between what is, and what is not, the experience.
Spacial: Think the doors between rooms. The fences that enclose these gardens where we play. The changes in environment that signal we are somewhere new.
Emotional: How does this feel different than that?
Temporal: How is this time bound? What is before, and what is after?
Behavioral: What happens here, that doesn’t happen outside of the experience?
But…
This week I was listening to a conversation with Nedra Glover Tawwab. And she defined boundaries as, simply, the expression of a need.
And sure, sometimes that need might be space. Distance. But not always.
It can also be care. Or closeness. Or comfort. Not a wall, but a hope. A longing. A yearning.
So…
What might that mean? For the containers of experience design? For us, as experience designers?
Can we build the boundaries of our containers as the meeting of our needs? Where what is inside the experiences we create are the moments where we are more cared for? More met? More seen? More known?
Desires delivered. Pleasure. The joys of yes, this.
Boundaries not as keeping things out, but as holding our dreams a bit more softly.
Step in to this moment that I’ve made for you. For what it is you need.
Your assignment, should you choose to play:
Three questions, for you:
One: What is it that you are scheming right now? A playdate? A date-date? A presentation on data?
Two: What is it, that these people really need? And that you need? How might you manifest it? In big ways or small?
Three: How might you welcome them (and yourself, too) in?
Yours, Olivia
Feelings are like parfaits. Or alethiometers. Or trifles. Full of layers. Each a different flavor.
Curious to spend more time wading into feelings as the foundation of experience design? Want to come make a beautiful, experiential mess with us? Join our live public gathering of Designing for Feelings on February 5th @ 8:30 am PT.
Get added to the calendar event (and future sessions) below!