For a few months now, as I’ve driven from the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, I’ve passed a billboard advertising the LG Dare on Verizon’s network. The slogan, “Dare to experience the best 3G network,” always makes me cringe a little bit, because to me it means Verizon doesn’t get it.

Is a network an experience? Currently, perhaps, yes. But in the future, definitely no.

I realize we’re still perfecting mobile infrastructure, but that’s all it is: a conduit. It’s like electricity (or the Internet), which at this point everyone expects to just work. Essentially, that’s what Verizon advertises: “It’s the network.” It works well. And yes, the network is likely the best in the United States. As someone who traveled across the country recently, visiting some remote areas, Verizon was the service that continued to work the most (AT&T, not so much).

But if the network works, then it’s invisible. Hence, not an experience. As mobile connectivity improves and moves increasingly toward working invisibly, like electricity, the experience of its network that Verizon currently pushes as its main sell becomes negligible.

This makes me question the real experience that Verizon should be selling: the touch screen LG Dare. And since that’s not what is being advertised, I can only imagine I would not care to dare experience the thing that actually offers one.

I’d like to continue a comment about bringing emotion into the design process because I think it deserves its own post. Kip said:

Design has some valuable roots in its ties with emotion, but in many ways we’ve lost touch. Can we bring a sophisticated discussion of “emotion” back on the table and include it in our design process?

I don’t know if we’ve lost touch or if emotion has been neglected in the bustle of quickly changing technology and products. But I think we can do more to bring emotion into the process. There might be an expectation that design is by default about emotion, and it does not need much attention.

Looking at my Basic Interaction design syllabus, emphasis is placed on the design process and methods. Although some of the methods, like personas and narrative scenarios are supposed to help get at the motivations and the experience, and by extension, the emotions. Video sketching is another method that I think helps to understand what the emotional aspects of the product might be like. Though we typically talk about video sketching as being about the experience, which leads me to ponder the relationship of emotion and experience in design (thesis paper topic for some grad student?).

I remember a recent comment about “shit in, shit out” in regards to the design process, which I took to mean you get what you bring into it. If you aren’t excited about the design process or problem, for example, your solution will not be very exciting. Perhaps if you are not emotional or consider emotion throughout the process, emotion will not be a strong component of your solution.

Last semester, when Kip and I were working on our TSA service design project, we spent a lot of time considering the emotional aspect of going through airport security. Taking lots of photos of people in context and having those photos surround us during design meetings really helped keep emotion at the forefront of our discussions. Though it also helped that we are both very aware of and keen to recognize the role of emotion in design.

Another suggestion I heard last summer at Adaptive Path came from Dan Saffer, who suggested considering the aesthetics sooner using an image, music, or word. This is similar to my experience with the TSA project, where we referred to certain photos to constantly remind us of the emotions involved currently and those we wanted the end result to embody.

Designers often argue about whether we’re designing an experience or designing for an experience, and ponder the more philosophical aspects of having an experience. Is an experience something designers shape? Is it something participants make?

Arguably, every experience is unique. But if this is true, what do we mean when we talk about the experience?

This makes for some great debate for designers. But what do the people who use the products and services we make think when they talk about experience?

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot recently, instigated by my…um…experience…designing for patients of a neurosurgery clinic. The patients referred to the experience as what they expected to happen: what they thought the experience would be like in a general sense. They would check-in, wait, it would be crowded, they’d get called to an exam room, wait some more, see the doctor, then check out.

But there was also the experience of what actually happened. They complained about waiting. The doctor joked with them, saying it was his goal to make them wait. They laughed and felt better.

Which is the experience? The perceived or the actual? Which is more important in the eyes of the patient? Which is more important in terms of the service? What can designers design?

I will continue to ponder.

I’m not one to go around telling people it’s my birthday, which is why this post is coming 40 minutes after my birthday (unless you’re on the west coast).

It was a fun experiment to see if anyone would say anything. My number one suspect for getting the word out: Facebook. At around 4 p.m. today, someone noticed. Got to love Facebook.

Or do you?

For our seminar 2 class, we’re writing a 15-page paper for which we needed to turn in an abstract today. My paper topic addresses the mixed emotions people have regarding Facebook. Here’s the abstract (mind you, this is beta, having been written before the paper, per our instructions):

With mobile devices becoming more prominent than personal computers, the social applications designed for them have great potential to impact social behavior and the emotions of those using them. Designers will need to consider the negative impacts of the products they create for this burgeoning space. This paper reflects on discoveries of coexisting positive and negative emotions related to the use of the online social networking tool, Facebook. In addition to creating a positive social community for communication and entertainment, the negative emotions associated with Facebook include feeling overwhelmed, dependent, and guilty. I argue that the unintended consequences of online social networking provide design implications for new ubiquitous social experiences using mobile devices. Designers will need to focus not only on making their mobile social products usable, useful, and desirable, but also account for the potential negative impacts of their use on social and cultural values.

Oh, I just thought of a way to contradict my first statement in this post. As I had at some previous point in time entered my birthday into Facebook, I indeed am someone who would broadcast his birthday.