The user has been the champion of our professional community. User experience and user-centered design place a laser-like focus on ensuring all of the needs and desires of the user are met. Yet at best, this is only one side of a multi-faceted universe of experience. Experiences happen among groups of people and across cultures. With the advent of the “Internet of Things,” experience may even go beyond the realm of humans. Focusing on experiences just from users overlooks these many experiences that can be captured, studied, and improved. Let’s discuss what the experiences beyond the scope of a user are and how we can capture, study, and improve them.
Presented by Ren Pope at UX Australia 2016