Using Experience Strategy to Design What People Truly Want

When an architect designs a single-family residence, the users of the future space sit across the table, describing what they need and want. For commercial properties, like mixed-use developments, offices, retail stores, or hotels, end users are further away — they can’t be involved in the design process in the same way. These users can be imagined, though, and through research, useful proxies can be developed. Creating these proxies and narrativizing their futures to improve the outcomes of design is a big part of Experience Strategy.

Any strategy is a plan. Designs are plans, too — a way to achieve a specific outcome, once or over and over. The design for a building yields a structure as close to the creator’s intentions as possible, given the limits of fabrication. A strategy, on the other hand, is a plan for achieving multiple viable outcomes — a set of parameters for design success.