Alastair Somerville – Designing forgettable experiences

In an Attention Economy, understanding how we forget is as important as knowing how we remember. Memorable experiences created with immemorable scaffolding. This workshop is about mapping how we all remember and forget. How do we structure exciting future design with elements made to be forgotten?

Making stunning experiences that users love means more than just how to design beautiful, accessible products and services. It means creating a whole structure of elements; some memorable, some not. It is easy to become obsessed with the design of the things users remember: those peak moments and endings that we know define great UX. This workshop is about breaking down memorable experiences (the moments, the places, the people, the artefacts, the emotions) to then explore the experiences that hold them together but which we forget. • We make so much unconscious to maintain clarity in what we want to do. • We often forget to find novelty. As designers, we need to understand how we forget to build memorable experiences. We need tools to explore and map how we remember and how we forget.

This workshop uses new frameworks and maps on our memories to first explore things we remember well, then the fragments of almost lost moments and finally the gaps, those forgotten times. Knowing how we ourselves remember and forget is a foundation for designing for others, for users.

About Alastair

Alastair Somerville is a sensory design consultant. He provides expert advice on cognition and person-centered design to companies and public organisations who provide both physical and digital products or services. He facilitates workshops on sensory and emotional design for corporations, like Google,  and major conferences, including UX Lisbon, SouthBy Southwest (SxSW) and UX Week. He is currently involved in cognitive accessibility projects for public transport in London and design for happiness in museums and visitor attractions.