What inspired you to pursue a career in design?

I always loved making things and I think this is what made me decide to go into design. I also really loved problem solving, being given a challenge and having to think about lots of different solutions.

The other thing that drew me into design was when I was at my University course induction, the lecturer said a lot of people that take the course want to have a positive impact on the world. That was something that really resonated with me, because I could see the things I was making, having an impact.

Those things combined really brought me to design. I had originally chosen to do Fashion Design, but then pivoted as I enjoyed the research side of things. This wasn’t so much a focus on the fashion side. That brought me to the human centred side of design, getting to know people and doing that research.

How do you define a meaningful user experience?

I take 'defining a meaningful user experience' back to how we remember experiences. How we make meaning from those memories is what creates a meaningful experience.

One way I think about explaining this is getting people to think about the best meal they have had in their life. Take yourself to that place, that restaurant, and think about all the things that made that experience meaningful for you.

Those are the things that drive meaning, how that experience created connection with someone else, or helped you feel a certain way. When we design we are actively thinking about how we can assemble the components of a product, a service, to create opportunity for that meaning to flourish. And for that experience to create positive memories for users.

That is how I think about meaningful experience, not necessarily that you can say definitively that an experience will be meaningful, but what you can do as a designer is create the environments for hopefully good positive memories or meaning to be created from the things you design.

What’s something unexpected that people often overlook in experience design?

I think smell. Probably not what you thought I was going to say!

I think the senses are really evocative tools for how we create memories and how we remember experiences. That can be a good or bad smell. I think sometimes things we overlook in experience design is the sensory element of the things we are designing. So the noises, the smells, the lighting. All of these things have a big impact on how we experience things.

I mention smell because I think it’s the most under rated sense when we think about designing. We have lighting designers, people who think about sounds and acoustics, but not really someone who goes around and thinks about the smell of a building. But I do think those things can be really evocative of memory.

Going back to the point before, about how often meaning is connected to how we create memories of a space, I think smell is super powerful.

What design or innovation trends are you most excited about?

I don’t just want to say AI, as I feel like everyone says that…

I’m not necessarily excited about AI itself, but more about how AI might change how we work and make decisions in what we value. When I say I'm interested in what will happen with AI, I'm also interested in what will happen with the counter trends - what is the opposite reaction that might happen to AI? And how will people respond to the use of this technology more ubiquitously?

I saw a news article the other day about someone campaigning for a law to protect creatives from the use of AI. I think some of these counters to AI will be really interesting.

Another thing I think is really interesting after doing some work in the satellite space, is the interesting use of GIS data (Geographic Information Systems). We are using photograph data from satellites to generate new information and insights, and combining this with AI so that we can start to use this mass pool of data for more readily accessible insights. This helps us make better decisions for how we use the land and the environment.

What does the micro and the macro mean to you?

Something that service design talks a lot about is being able to zoom in and out and that being a key skill.

To me, micro is looking at the detail of a process of a product or an interaction someone might have.

The macro is thinking about how that fits into the bigger picture, the strategy, and why you are doing something.

So to me, the macro is very much about the why, and the impact. And the micro is how you make that impact tangible through the detail of designs that you make. I think being able to zoom into the detail is a really good skill to have as a designer, and as a team. It also makes sure that what you are doing is aligned to an overall impact that you want to have. That overall impact is so important because you can always do what someone asks you to do, but having the ability to think about and help a client, or the stakeholder see the bigger picture in a new way is a really good skill.

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Written by:

Alice Kennedy
Principal Service Designer

Alice has a wealth of experience supporting organisations to create and evolve their services. She has worked in various industries including healthcare, public sector, finance, and fem-tech. Alice is passionate about co-design and finding solutions in collaboration with users and organisations. Her experience spans all stages of a project with skills in thinking through the strategy to working with engineers to deliver final designs.

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