Experience Design: A Framework for Integrating Brand, Experience, and Value

Section I

Context

The execution of an action by no means proves that we know, even superficially, what we are doing or how we are doing it.

If we attempt to carry out an action with awareness—that is, to follow it in detail—we soon discover that even the simplest and most common of actions, such as getting up from a chair, is a mystery, and that we have no idea at all how it is done.

—Moshé Feldenkrais1

Moshé Feldenkrais was a Ukrainian-born, French-educated physicist who helped the British improve sonar during World War II and later developed an approach to physical therapy that he practiced after moving to Tel Aviv in 1954. Feldenkrais therapy is a form of physical therapy that begins with raising self-awareness in how movement is occurring and then using this awareness and a gentle guiding of new ways of moving to overcome physical problems. Modern understanding of the relationship between the brain and the body acknowledges that the body is capable of much movement, completely independent of conscious thought or even any awareness of what is actually going on. To some degree, there may even be aspects of movement that are hardwired outside of the “thinking” brain.

Before any change can begin, there needs to be an awareness of a current state from which one is changing. A lot of what we see as customer experience, and how business approaches it, seems to be based on a response that is largely going through the motions. It’s something that everyone does, and often you simply ...