In the book, “Experience Design: Technology for All the Right Reasons” by Marc Hassenzahl (2010), there’s a section labeled, “Do needs have different priorities?” Below is last paragraph of that,
“Identifying situations, which imply the systematic deprivation of a need, is an important starting point for Experience Design. It is difficult to “sell” an experience of a certain type to somebody, who is already saturated. However, the true challenge for Experience Design is to fulfill needs without making this too obvious.” (Hassenzahl, 2010)
For some reason, this paragraph made think quickly of
- Issues that I’ve experienced as educator and the possible relation between saturation and learning experiences,
- the relevance of contrast in design and its use as a mechanism to avoid saturation,
- and the connection between the use of a particular design and the so-called north-south in the sense that
- even though the deprivation of needs occurs worldwide, it is likely that they result different for all the people or regions in the world,
- and how that might imply that a design
- just cannot guarantee a uniform user experience at all, or
- it is important for any design to leave enough room for the users to adapt it and thus support the creation of a meaningful user experience.
A small but powerful paragraph from my perspective.