Designing emotion into experiences
When did you last have a really great experience?
I’m talking about something which made the hairs stand up on your arms, which gave you the biggest smile, or which made your heart race with excitement?
We have these moments in our personal life, if we’re lucky (see pic below). How do we recreate that emotion through our experience design work in our own organisations or for clients?
WXO - World Experience Organization November campfire got me thinking. Listening to the clever and funny Kevin Williams talk about the world of social entertainment, I was interested to see how many of the techniques he’s used (at Disney and the many theme parks and attractions he’s designed), we also use Fathom XP when designing and delivering experiences for employees as part of a culture transformation.
My top 10 tips for creating emotionally engaging experiences
🎨 A central creative concept and a strong narrative are key – always were, always will be. Without it, people can’t connect to the experience and won’t care about how it plays out.
🛶 Think about the entire journey and make it fun and inspiring at every point. We design around the 5x Es of a great experience: Entice, enter, engage, exit and extend.
🏖 Design a FOMO experience – make it so cool, people don’t want to miss out.
👩🎤 Train game masters / change champions to help people navigate the space and immerse themselves in the experience.
🕹 Clever tech can be fun, but don’t get consumed by tech, it’s only part of the experience.
🙌 Make it accessible and inclusive for everyone.
🎁 Make it competitive – collect points and prizes/merch.
🍿 Food and drinks are always important, but theme them so it all aligns with the central concept. This is the only element which relies on the experience being live interestingly, unless you really push virtual experiences and send people food boxes.
🤳 Create fun selfie opportunities to spread the word.
💕 Build fandom through social influencers.
Lily and I at Secret Cinema's brilliant immersive Greece performance in Summer.
