The Experience Economy
cdixon.org
cdixon.org
Interaction design is not replacing technical prowess. Interaction design is actually increasing the need for technical prowess.
Now, creating a product that is technologically funcional and fulfills business needs is not enough. It must also fit with the overall user experience strategy.
That's conclusion is a step too far from the majority of the post. Usability is the most important differentiator when all technology is adequate, but when it is not the fact that the technology exists is most important.
Though I mean most social media, and even things like Heroku and Parse is about experiences, but real technology startups like Planetary Resources or Google care most about technical prowess.
Edit: I just find it somewhat annoying that this article leaps from "startups choose to innovate in experiences instead of technology" to "experiences matter more than technology".
The reason that UX has become more critical for certain classes of software is because (a) consumers rather than business have become the predominant driver of spending for desktop computers over the last 15 years, and (b) because the web and app stores removed distribution and sales channels as competitive advantages, leaving price and experience.
Product design is now more important, sure, but it's because the playing field has been flattened and because more consumers are buying. NOT because of some broader macroeconomic trend that can be applied to all markets.
That said, this fact of life when selling to enterprises is what caused me to permanently exit the enterprise software space. Success requires you to make crappy software.
Fortunately the SaaS-ification of enterprise has allowed the enterprise world to mitigate this problem by allowing the actual end users of products to also be the economic buyer through their monthly budget.
I consider SaaS delivery to be a wonderful financial innovation. I agree with parent that this change isn't due to macro changes in buyers but rather innovations in pricing and channel which align incentives in a positive way.
I encourage all of us HN'ers to continually challenge ourselves to find innovative ways to align incentives for maximum value creation. It's good for society and tends to be even better for profits.
"The emphasis on experiences also helps explain other large trends like the migration to cities. Cities have always offered the trade-off of fewer goods and less space in exchange for better experiences."
...is just false & i certainly don't agree with this assertion -- to each is own, but i live in a small town in the mountains and it's pretty rad. i love city life just the same, but the reason most people have moved to cities is because that's where higher paying jobs typically are located. this essay makes way too many assumptions.
Yeah, and even that's still just a consequence of the fact that big cities offer more opportunities, which leads to competition for the best candidates. I'm still hoping that this connected world embraces remote working and the trend reverses.
My graduation thesis was around this subject. The book "The Experience Economy" by Pine & Gilmore is a great start and generally regarded as the origin for the idea of experiences as products: http://www.amazon.com/The-Experience-Economy-Theater-Busines...
A couple interesting articles:
http://www.experience-economy.com/wp-content/UserFiles/File/...
http://www.adaptivepath.com/uploads/documents/apr-005_busine...
The real change that has taken place in cities has not been 'more people in the [designated 100 years ago] city area'. It would be pretty much impossible for most of New York city's 'growth' to happen in the city area (at least, without removing planning regulations entirely). Demand is going up massively though. The inner-city 'slums' of the 20thC are very definitely not coming back and have been replaced by areas of affluence, which are pretty unaffordable to live in for most of the population.
The suburbs are changing too. People are using 'local centres' more, and paying more to be close to a nice one. So even the suburbs are less 'suburban' than they used to be.
Sure, they focus on the experience their customers have...using the physical products they just bought from Apple. I thought it was the conventional wisdom, by now, that Apple was a hardware manufacturer and they make money by getting you to buy physical objects. iTunes, iCloud, etc are ways to make their hardware more attractive.
I wanted to write something much more civil and detailed about why I think the article is weak. But then I realized there's a lot of value in just sharing the honest, immediate gut reaction. Yes, it's harsh, but you don't often get that kind of honesty.
(And I am aware of the studies that show experiences make us happier than things -- and I agree with them. That's not where the horseshit is).
Paragraph 3 bugs me because I've never left a music concert, even for performers I absolutely love, without feeling that I had just way overpaid and invested a ton of hassle (fighting traffic, standing in line, etc.) for less reward than I had hoped for. (Correction: one concert that I got free tickets to was a fantastic experience, leading to family bonding and inspiration for life).
And musical recordings are a huge part of my daily life. I don't see musical recordings vs. concerts as a good example of the product/experience dichotomy. A musical recording represents a pre-packaged experience I can have whenever I want ... and that's exactly how it plays out in my daily life.
And the example of cities offering experiences in exchange for other non-experience goods doesn't work for me. City verus rural is not about experience versus product. There are experiences you can have in a rural area that are not available in a city. City people pay money to take trips to rural areas for "experiences". And of course vice versa. So both cities and rural areas offer both experiences and products.
The thing that gives me the strongest sense of "horseshit" is the claim that technical prowess is taking a backseat to interaction design. I can see how it may appear that way to some people -- and those people are exposed to observations I'm not exposed to (since I'm not currently at a start-up).
However, I simply do not think it is possible for technical prowess to take a backseat to anything. Software development may indeed be the most complex endeavor humanity has invented for itself. The desire to make the experience fantastic -- an excellent goal -- simply adds more requirements and hence more complexity. So the most fundamental thing you need in a software company is technical prowess (or at least, technical prowess is one of the fundamental things you need, and perhaps there are 3 or 5 other fundamental things you need as well).
You could certainly argue that technical prowess is no longer enough -- that developers need to understand "interaction design" too, for example. But that's different from saying that technical prowess takes "a back seat" to interaction design.
If you claim that it is more important for a software startup to have access to strong interaction design capabilities than to have access to strong technical prowess, then I claim that you're wrong. Of course, only time could tell which one of us would be right, but I'd feel very confident that the smart money would be with me.
In summary, I think the focus on the entire experience, like Apple has practiced for a while, is a great idea. But I felt like the article over-stated it, and that almost all of the statements the article made in support of the idea wilted as I read them. That, plus some hyperbole (such as "the era of competing over technical specifications is over", and that interaction design is replacing technical prowess), triggered the "horseshit" response. The article made some pretty big proclamations, what with eras ending and whatnot, and if proclamations like that aren't backed up well, you risk triggering a "horsehit" response.
That said, I don't usually go around telling nice people who've shared their thoughts with enthusiasm that I think there stuff is horseshit. I hope you don't take it too hard. My first instinct was "horseshit". My second instinct was to soften that up and sugarcoat it. I almost always follow that second instinct. But this time, I decided what the hell, why not try a smidgen of radical honesty and lay out my full, unfiltered, honest reaction. And whether we agree or disagree, at least you get a glimpse into one reader's reaction.
A good question to ask in the face of a one line dismissal. The question elicited a much more useful contribution.
Perhaps it'll be an industry of experiential entertainment that will provide real alternative to Hollywood and the MPAA.
In the context of the research about happiness, experience meant real live experiences.You usually remember those kinds of experiences, they become a part of who you are, and you do use memories of them to change your mood.
Products usually have a different happiness charasteristic. They make you happy but only for a short time and then you get used to them.
Is software products or experiences ? well that depends on the software. airBNB seems to fit on the product model, like a well designed lamp. Using a programming language is an experience.
Currently the idea of "experience" being the primary goal is being used as a political device in order to force unemployed people to work in for-profit companies without pay for significant periods of time, so I don't think it's a good idea to take a fetishistic attitude towards experience itself whilst simultaneously overlooking other equally or more important issues.