The Experience of Evolution: Developments in Design Practice

Designers today have opportunities to design much more than simply static objects. We are designing integrated and dynamic interactions with objects, spaces and services and helping companies with more strategic decisions. Expanded opportunities have spawned developments in traditional design practice.First are developments relating to awareness of people's experience. Design- and user-research methods are evolving. Combinations of projective techniques and empathic exercises are more holistic in scope and yield results that can be more viscerally understood.A second development is in representing multiple dimensions of people's experience through modelling tools used to explore design ideas. Video scenarios and enactment enable explorations, in more dynamic ways, of what it will be like to interact with new designs.Finally, both design teams and client groups involve professionals from multiple disciplines and business functions. Tools such as experience prototyping are being developed to promote shared visions and to enable the communication of experiential design ideas in compelling ways.