FOR CREATIVES
The Headlines
Many creatives agreed that as frustrating and changeable as the constraints brought by COVID have been, they have pushed us to develop in directions which have been on the table and in many cases desirable for a while.
For example, there’s a real desire for hygiene concerns around devices (headsets, touch screens) to push designers to integrate digital elements much more seamlessly into experiences, making for much stronger and less disjointed experiences overall.
The changing needs of clients and audiences over this time also invites us to think more broadly about what experiences are good for - what we can achieve with them. At this time of great change there are new social needs which experience design can be a big part of filling. Equity, access and the individual’s relationship with the world around them feature heavily in these conversations. Experience design becomes more about creating compelling space for audiences to step into and engage as opposed to providing them with a predetermined, fixed experience. The question becomes more how we facilitate participation rather than how we design an interactive experience.
This feeds into conversations around where our design process might be holding us back. Experience design teams draw on a rich variety of design practices and yet our design processes contain a lot of hand-me-down practices which are not necessarily fit for purpose. This report closes with a call to the sector to develop processes which are better integrated and more based on collaboration between client, creatives and audiences.
Download the full report to read the group’s insights into:
The status of touch
Social impact
Co-creation
Interiority
Consumerism, citizenship and creativity
Agency and open ended possibilities
Building community and who benefits
When interaction doesn't happen
New ways of networking