Step 1: Designing the Human Experience
At Forte, we bring a unique approach to technology design. At the foundation of our consulting work is the concept of “experiential design”. With more than 50 years of combined experience on our team, we’ve come to recognize that “technology” projects often fall short of client expectations because nobody ever took the time to fully explore the experience and expectations that key stakeholders are bringing into the project.
Experiential design flips this around with a focus on the “experience” the stakeholders would like to achieve at the end of the project. When we focus on the experience, this stimulates important conversations and drives important decisions. Encapsulated in our Experiential Design approach are the following:
WHAT DO I WANT TO ACHIEVE
At the core of the experiential design is the intent to establish what exactly you’re looking to achieve. Depending upon the project, the answer will vary. Depending upon how you convey your objectives will drive other aspects of the design process.
HOW DO I WANT TO ACHIEVE IT
We will often refer to “workflow” during our consulting process. In this context we are seeking to understand and document exactly how you want to use the systems, i.e. the “ideal outcome”. By establishing this, we then work to determine if we can achieve that, and then confirm that doing so will meet the functional, budgetary and schedule limitation within the project.
HOW DO I WANT IT TO FEEL
Every individual will bring a unique outlook to this discussion. Our process will seek to uncover each stakeholders vision for the space, and then work to align them.
WHAT ARE THE HIGHEST PRIORITIES
Invariably a discussion about experiential design will lead to a discussion about priorities. In many cases the workflow to achieve one experience may be counter to the desired workflow for another group of stakeholders. We will work to capture the precise needs of the stakeholder group and then prioritize those against others.
IS MY VISION SHARED?
Not everyone will share the same vision for the experience they want to achieve in this project. By forcing this discussion in a structured way, we will identify areas of compliment and conflict so that we address those head on. This is also why a diverse stakeholder group is so important to project success.