Experience design seems to be a consequentialist act. Of course our intentions matter, but it seems likely that success or failure of an experience will be judged by the outcomes rather than by the intentions.

We can imagine a case in which we’re at a restaurant, and something goes wrong… perhaps we take a mouthful of our creamy tomato soup only to find that it’s crunchy. Why is it crunchy? To our horror we find we’ve just munched a cockroach who’d decided to go for a creamy tomato swim.

It’s easy to imagine that the chef would be mortified. It certainly wasn’t his intent. Perhaps it’s not even his fault. Perhaps the restaurant is spotless, and our crunchy soup-swimmer flew in through the door. We might even recognise that it was an accident.

And yet, it’s hard to imagine that our experience is not ruined.

If we accept experience design to be a consequentialist act, intending to design a great experience is insufficient. We would need to begin with the end in mind, with the telos.

Who is for?
What is it for?