Experiences emerge in and from the interactions of people, places, objects, information and media. And people hardly ever interact with only one ‘thing’ in one tidy and orderly situation at a time. On the contrary, the world is messy and people mix and mingle. People interact with multiple things, in shifting environments and in various social constellations. This poses great challenges for the design and development of technology (as well as for the design and development of a lot of other things). The challenge is to design for complexity.
Focusing on human experience – and indeed designing for human experience – makes it possible and necessary for researchers and designers to cross boundaries and inquire into the complex combinations of people and things, places, information, media, objects and services.
Putting experience center stage makes it possible to interrogate the complex entanglements of the hyper-designed worlds we inhabit. Which worlds are we creating? What life-forms are we cultivating?