Designing a good experience: an example from the unvirtual highway.

How does one design a good experience, online or offline? One of the most important aspects in design is to know your user well enough to provide the basic services they may need.    Then judiciously add elements to serve more specific needs, and if possible, delight by supporting needs/desires your customers may not have realized or articulated.

Take Visitor Center/rest stops, for example, on our interstate highway system.  A pretty mundane and locally run (state by state) companion our nation’s interstate highway system.  The quality and services provided are extremely divergent, and  influence a person’s driving experience as they travel through the state.   (Ever want something other than Dunkin’ Donuts or MacDonald’s  type fare while on the Mass Pike)?

 Done well, they can create a great introductory experience to the “doorway” of the state and create a returning visitor for future events. Take the state of Vermont, which builds on its reputation as a tourist destination for its scenery and quality Vermont made products.  As you cross over from Massachusetts on 91 or 93 into Vermont, you will soon encounter a well lit, welcoming visitor center. On the outside is ample parking for cars and trucks, good lighting, picnic tables, a covered picnic area and a dog run on a swathe of green grass.  Inside the building are vending machines and bathrooms for basic needs, and then a whole host of other information for those with more explicit needs.  (No discount liquor store here, just maple syrup).    They have exhibits featuring destinations throughout the state, free wifi, free coffee,  rocking chairs with sheepskin cushions so you can sit and peruse their material, free maps and pamphlets for businesses and recreation areas,  a chalkboard listing highlights of the week or weekend and most amazingly, live visitor representatives, 24 hours a day, who are ready to help you with whatever you want to do during your stay in Vermont.   You may walk in needing the restroom  most of all and a cup of coffee a not to distance second,  but you leave with more knowledge about where you’re going, new ideas things you might want to do and collateral to support you along the way.  All of this can contribute to the thought “That was so fun/convenient/helpful – I’ll do it again.”   (I was so pleased with my experience that when I left the state I wished they had an exit from the southbound side of the highway so I could visit and gather more ideas for my next trip).  Mark this with the contrast of the neighboring  Massachusetts  “rest stop”  a dark, empty parking lot with trash cans and no facilities, rendering it  an example of dismal neglect and lack of concern for potential visitors.   

A person’s experience with a brand or product or website should strive to create this type of supportive, multi-tiered experience.  The first step is to welcome a visitor in to a recognizable space and provide the essential functions or information they need in order to meet their initial goal.  The second is to seamlessly provide access to information visitors may find relevant in the accomplishment of secondary, more long term goals.  The most challenging but most worthwhile one is to “delight” the visitor so they leave with a new appreciation for the brand/product/service and become an advocate who returns time and time again.