The Future of Experience Design: People, Purpose, Planet

There’s a lot of noise about the fate of virtual experiences now that the world seems to be opening up again and we’re seeing the introduction of hybrid events. I’m also hearing a lot about ‘event fatigue’ and perhaps less time for or interest in the events that kept a lot of us going over the past 18 months. This got me thinking about how I feel about the future of digital experiences.

I’ve worked on some amazing events with some of the UK’s biggest businesses over the past couple of years, where we’ve brought together teams from all across the world and created a space for incredible moments of human connection in a time of global crisis. It’s really important that we don’t assume online events are a thing that happened during the pandemic; digital events are no longer a replacement or an alternative, driven by lockdowns and travel bans. They are a new way to create a community, discuss, teach, learn, listen, engage (etc..), often more effectively than at an in person event.

Create a bespoke experience based on the audience’s needs.

We must remember, when designing an event, that it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution; there will be specific objectives tailored to the attendee’s needs.

• What’s the objective? Every event or experience will have different desired outcomes.
• What do the audience need? What value does the experience offer to your audience? What problem is it trying to solve? Is it human connection, is it to debate a topic etc.?
• Design the experience with evidence. Like any good design process, experience design should begin with evidence and an understanding of what’s important to your audience.

Fluxx recently partnered with the UK’s largest facilities management company to design an employee-facing digital festival, bringing together over 25,000 colleagues from across the UK, Europe and further afield for the first time. By speaking to a cross-section of the target audience in the design process, we realised that as a large group of our audience are on shift work, they would struggle to attend live. In response we ensured every event was available on-demand, with over 50 hours of valuable content. There have been over 10,000+ playbacks of that content and it lives on, accessible to all.

The feedback? “This format is excellent! Makes joining and participating far easier as I’m able to watch back in my own time”.

Digital, Hybrid or IRL?

The question to answer when deciding on IRL or hybrid events is, are we trying to do this to simply ‘get back in the room’ or are they of true, unparalleled value to the guests if they’re able to attend in-person rather than online? And how are we measuring this?

Any decisions for a hybrid experience will need to work for both an in-person and online event. Think about the journey from both sides and consider how you can join them together — for example using an accessible comms channel like Slack to help people stay in touch, collaborate and stay socially connected. We held our own Reconnection event in the summer; it was the first time we’d got together in almost 18 months. Some of us gathered in our London office, while others joined remotely. It was a chance to reconnect, share important messages, meet wonderful new colleagues and have some fun.

Smarter business, happier planet

There’s a real case for harnessing the digital acceleration of the past 2 years for a better future for our businesses, and for our world. Business travel represents 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Surely we can master the art of virtual connection in the interest of saving the planet, can’t we?

Last year we helped design and deliver a ‘global away day’ experience for an FMCG company with employees spread across Europe, APAC and AMESA region and in partnership with a leading health insurance business we created a virtual event series for their intermediary network, which generated consistent attendance from over 500 intermediaries each time.

We also helped kick off a previously IRL healthcare executive development programme with delegates from New Zealand, Zimbabwe, China, Spain, Austria, Germany, USA and the UK to set the tone for a new, virtual programme. The business benefits are clear — less expense, time travelling, greater collaboration reach and a huge benefit to our environment with over 20 tonnes (the weight of 4 elephants) worth of carbon emission saved from this virtual event alone. Digital events are here to stay. And so they should be.

If you’d like to chat about designing audience-centric experiences, drop me a line at annabel.staib@fluxx.uk.com.