As a user/brand experience design strategist I often rely on the structure and flow of the customer experience lifecycle as a way to create a personalized language that may be used to inspire fresh ideas for new products, services and communications. The lifecycle can be used to tap into emotional contexts within which consumers, customers, and users might be motivated to engage with and finding meaning in these same products, services and communications. The language may start simply with Attract, Convert, and Retain but within that framework a designer may also wish to Inspire, Inform, and Connect…for instance. The language should be recognizable as a shared language between the customer and the brand…both can instantly relate to it because it speaks to the goals and needs and forms of personal expression of both.
The language of experience is very much an action language…dominated by verbs, because, as a songwriter friend of mine once wrote, “Actions! Actions make things happen!” The language of experience is also very much the language of relationship-building. The value and success of most digital interactions today is measured by the how often and how deeply users do some or all of the following verb actions…