The shitty to holy shit spectrum
Where do you want to move your moments?
If you’re new here: I’m hosting an 8-week, virtual, experience design retreat.
If you’re not new here: hi hello it’s happening again!
Either way, I’d love to have you.
We kick off April 29th (next Tuesday!). And enrollment closes April 28th @ 11:59 pm PT.
If you want to create experiences that don’t measure success by how much content they’ve packed in, but instead by the feelings they’ve created, how they’ve helped soften a nervous system, ways they’ve shaped the textures of space and time, and whether they’ve manifested something that stays with you long after…
Well that’s what Designing Experiences for Radical Imagination is all about.
If you’re curious but not totally sure if it’s the right fit—whether you’re brand new to experience design, been in this work for years, or don’t even know what to call what it is you do—I’d love to chat about it. No pressure. Just real talk and making sense of whether it’d feel good and juicy for you.
💬 Book a 1:1 chat with me
🌀 Explore the retreat details here
This is the last run of the retreat before late fall! Come party before summer.
I am writing to you from an airplane over the Rocky Mountains.
Air travel in my family this past weekend has been mostly filled with neutral-at-best (the twins in the row in front of me only cried for one straight hour, not all five) and extremely-crappy-at-worst (“Yes passengers, that is indeed fuel you see leaking outside the right wing. We will now be taking a hard left turn and making for Alaska instead of New Jersey.”) moments strung all together.
And it’s given me a new take on what moments deserve our attention as experience designers, and what the heck we might want to do with them.
Let’s assume that without your intentional, additional intervention, the moments of an experience can be bucketed into four broad categories:
Shitty:
These are bad, in all varieties and flavors— uncomfortable, icky, frustrating, exclusionary etc. etc. and as such, likely memorable.
Your luggage gets sent to the wrong airport. You spilled coffee all over yourself. It’s extremely difficult to find the bathroom and you get lost while running late for your gate. The person at the counter was patronizing and mean. You paid $37 dollars for a terrible, wilty caesar salad.
Neutral:
These are the non-moments. They don’t deliver high value, or big feelings, and you probably don’t even remember them.
They scanned your ticket. You put your bag in the overhead bin. You waited in line. The bathroom was clean-ish.
Good:
These are the moments that make you go “Oh…that was pretty nice?!”
Someone helped you lift your carry-on. You got complimented on your travel outfit. The seating by the gate was quite comfortable. You procured a nice treat for your troubles.
Holy shit:
These are the things that make you say “Holy hell that was amazing. What? Wow.”
Now, unfortunately for me I had zero of these during my weekend-long cross-country slog. But this would have looked like getting unexpectedly upgraded to business class and delivered a hot cookie. Or my favorite band also being on board and performing an impromptu inflight concert.
Now comes the fun part.
Once we’ve figured out where the existing moments of our experience are starting, we get to decide how far, and in what ways, we want to shift them.
Here’s what I mean:
Shitty → neutral:
Do you want to take a moment that is currently garbage, and make it non-existent?
The bathroom is not hidden down three staircases, but instead well-labeled and easy to find. And as such does not register as a consequential negative or positive moment in my journey.
Shitty → good:
This is taking something currently bad and making it pretty nice. What you create here is some lite delight. You’re a tad surprised, and the above-expected quality makes you feel cared for and considered.
I was pissed that I was forced to check my carry-on because SHOCKER everyone brought a bag. And I have a tight connection and surely my luggage will be lost. But now I am getting automatic updates on my phone with the location of my suitcase. And I don’t have to lug it behind me while I sprint through the airport, and I can see it’s been loaded onto my next flight. And now I don't have to worry about clobbering another passenger as I haul it into the overhead bin. Maybe this was a win?
Shitty → holy shit:
This is taking something that usually is really bad, and making it instead an exceptionally amazing moment. This is the biggest possible delta between expectations and reality, and as a result has the potential for the most exquisite and enormous delight.
The first of my two flights was delayed, but then they got me on a direct flight that actually gets in earlier, moved me to first class, and sent me to the business lounge for a massage.
We can do the same up the spectrum.
We can choose a neutral moment, and make it good or exceptional — this is taking a non-moment, and creating something important or impactful or good-sticky.
Or take a good moment, and make it outstanding — this is building on existing positive momentum and what’s already working well.
But don’t worry y’all, no need to keep it all straight in your noggins. I’ve built you a nifty little chart to map it all out.
So, here’s what I’m proposing: you map out all the moments in your experience, and what they could become.
And then, critically, you choose.
You can’t, and also shouldn’t, invest in all of them. This prioritization is the real art of experience design. It’s picking what’s worth the resources.
And, it is almost always better to do fewer things, much better, than it is to do more things, a little better.
So, how do you choose?
Good news and bad news: there’s no right answer.
So here’s some questions to ask yourself to get there:
How bad are the existing shitty moments?
If you have some really bad ones, no matter what else you change, this may be the predominant flavor of your experience.
If your airplane falls out of the sky, having that hot cookie is not going to matter. So fix your engineering and that fuel leak first.
What do you know of your people?
As with all experience design, the more you know about your humans — what they care about, what they like, what they hate, the easier it will be to make decisions.
Perhaps a Bollywood flashmob might be your airport dream, but not your partner’s.
What ideas most excite you, the experience designer?
If you’re personally stoked, tickled, or delighted, you’ll be more likely to invest in the details of whatever it is.
Sure, you could make prettier airline paper tickets, and that could be nice. But getting Dolly Parton to perform in the airport? Well if that’s your dream-come-true, in all likelihood you’ll knock the moment out of the park.
How can you prioritize bigger deltas, but fewer moments?
Where will you get the most bang for your buck — making something wildly unexpected and differentiated? Better to go all in on one than spread the resources thin and make everything just a little bit less meh.
Your assignment, should you choose to play:
Pick an experience you’re designing.
Map the existing moments.
Brainstorm how you might transform each — in little ways and big.
Choose a few that feel ripest.
Get going.
And tell us about it.
Yours, Olivia
Pssssst: Check the p.s. below for a free workshop gathering I’m hosting this Friday, April 25th.
P.S. Want to come wade around in the ways and means of this experiential, emotional meaning-making? The next gathering of ✨ Designing for Feelings ✨ is happening this Friday, April 25th at 8 am pt.
Come join this free public workshop to make a goodmess together on the internet.
Hi.
Are you considering joining our 2-month experiential deep dive?
Are you wondering…“Is this really for me?”
Maybe you’re brand new to facilitation or designing experiences. Or maybe you’re a seasoned pro who wonders if this will go deep enough. Maybe this is a personal calling. Or a professional expansion. Maybe you don’t even know what “experience design” really means yet.
Here’s the thing:
This retreat was made for the in-betweeners. The explorers. The ones who make things for people and want those things to mean more, feed the hunger, and feel more alive.
Designing Experiences for Radical Imagination is where structure meets soul. Where artistry meets intention. Where we get to play with both our left and our right brains. And where we find new ways to human together, in service of building worlds for one another.
If that stirs something in you, you’re in the right place.