I’m hosting a workshop on Emotional Ergonomics and Designing for Feelings tomorrow, August 1st @ 8 am PT with friends at RADAR. Come play!
In designing the moments of an experience, the beginning and the ending have an outsized effect on the whole.
But the true beginning actually precedes the start — it encompasses all of what happens before.
And a core part of many befores? The wait.
A wait can amplify your experience: build anticipation, camaraderie, give folks time to prepare themselves. And it can also be sucky, soul draining, and anger inducing.
In designing the wait, I have two shapes for you to consider:
The waiting room
An experiential waiting room is a space that lacks a feeling of functional order.
Imagine waiting for your name to get called at the ER. You are sitting in any number of chairs, or perhaps pacing, or shaking the vending machine in anger. And at some unknown point in the future you will be summoned.
Or waiting for Taylor Swift ticket sales to open you are placed in a virtual holding pen, and it feels unclear exactly who will be let into the purchase flow first.
Or you applied for a fellowship and they’ll let you know sometime in the next few months. When? No promises. Does when you applied have an impact? They weren’t super clear about that.
This lack of transparent order can breed a constant assessment of fairness, a viewing of others as competition, and a general sense of frustrated uncertainty. Did I get here before them? Why were they served first? Should I move closer to the front of the room and try to get in front of those people? Is there some hack to getting called? WHEN WILL IT BE MY TURN??
And it can create a swarm: the rush to the bottleneck entrance. Folks lingering by the airline desk to try and cut in when their boarding number is called. The crowd pushing to get into the concert venue. Swarms often feel shitty and unfair, unless of course you got there last and happen to get in first, in which case they feel amazing.
Not all waiting rooms are bad, though.
They can create and amplify collective feelings.
Waiting rooms can build a sense of togetherness and shared beginning, and are a way to batch folks in so they set out as a singular group. The Mickey and Minnie train ride in Disneyland’s Toontown, for example, starts the group in a theater room together to build the narrative tension, before the stage opens up, the train bursts through, and you are all swept inside to get on the ride.
In waiting rooms we tend to be more impacted by the feelings of those around us, especially when the waiting is in shared physical space. That can be great — if those feelings are joyful anticipation and giddiness. Or not so nice — if you are surrounded by people exuding waves of anxious dread.
Now, onto our second shape:
The line
An experiential line prioritizes a transparent order and a feeling of progression.
You get in line for the pharmacy, and you go up to the counter in the order you arrived. You can track your progress by how you’ve moved in space, or by counting the people in front of you (though this doesn’t necessarily tell you how much time it will take). In digital lines, it’s being told how many callers are ahead of you, or that applications will be read in the order in which they are submitted.
A line can create a feeling of fairness (until, of course, the line cutters and place-holders enter the scene). You don’t need to expend energy assessing your competition or strategizing your approach.
The shape, location, and surrounding environment of a line can have a big impact on how it feels.
A line on the sidewalk outside a new bakery can signal a hot new pastry on the scene that is worth the wait, and entice folks walking by to join. Whereas a snaking line that takes up all the indoor seating space can feel overwhelming and nudge you to go elsewhere instead. Some theme park rides add narrative to waiting in line, to alleviate the boredom and engage the audience early in the plot. At our favorite taco shop, you stand in a (usually long) line to order at the counter. But someone comes up while you wait and takes your drink order, so your bevvy is ready by the time you are at the register. Some Krispy Kreme stores will give you a free, hot donut while you queue.
If there are multiple entrance points (think multiple checkout lanes or individual bathroom stalls), consider your line design strategy. Having an individual line for each, like most grocery stores, requires you to gamble, and often ends up with you wondering if you made the wrong choice. Most public multi-stall bathrooms, on the other hand, use the strategy of a single line that bifurcates at the end. Whichever stall opens first goes to the next person in line, eliminating the need for choice or line envy.
The combos
But lines and waiting rooms aren’t mutually exclusive: you can merge and combine them in interesting ways:
A handful of years ago some friends and I designed an immersive evening centering the experience of encountering strangers. We had folks line up outside the event space, and a dashing Australian man in a top hat and tails would deliver them a hot cup of tea while they waited in the night air. Once we had a critical mass, we would batch them into the foyer, a cozy room lit with hundreds of candles, where they were all handed hand-written letters. Moments later, the doors to the main space would open and they would all enter together. Each served its purpose: the chilly, outside line to build anticipation and to heighten, through contrast, the literal and emotional warmth of the foyer. And that foyer waiting room as a collective moment of beginning before folks dispersed into the multiple gallery rooms on their own journeys.
Or take some fast casual restaurants that have a screen on which they show the digital queue. You can sit anywhere while you wait but you know where in the line of production your order number is.
Your assignment, should you choose to play:
As with all experience design, it comes down to this: how do you want people to feel? Both waiting shapes have their uses. So how can you choose and sculpt the before experience to best support your goals?
Two invitations for you:
Spend the week noticing the waitings you encounter. What feels good or crunchy? When does the experience feel thoughtfully designed or terrible? What could they change?
Design the waiting for some experience in your life. It could be as small as thinking about the moments before everyone arrives on the Zoom, or plotting out how people get food in your living room pizza party.
Yours, Olivia
I host a live, public event called Designing for Feelings. Our next gathering is August 6th @ 9:30 am PT. Get added to the calendar event below!