Designing Transformative Experiences

12 ■ Meaning Making

Forging Personal Relevance and Designing to Support That Process

Whoever controls information, whoever controls meaning, acquires power.

—Laura Esquivel,Malinche

Meaning making is the last of the ELVIS 7 (see figure 18). As all of our experiences are ultimately transformed into narratives, the process of meaning making occurs through the wonderfully rich and multifaceted generation of personal narratives. Recall that for experiences to be transformative, the experience narratives must in some way inform, influence, or modify our identity narratives. How can designers facilitate this meaning-making process with their experiencers? To explore this, let’s start with a story within a story.

Figure 18: Meaning Making

A Fall ...