The document discusses the evolution of design from creating tangible objects to focusing on user experiences in cross-channel ecosystems. It highlights the shift from traditional design practices to a design mindset that encompasses both digital and physical environments, exemplified by services like Uber, which are part of a broader ecosystem of personal transportation. Ultimately, it emphasizes the importance of information architecture in navigating the complexity of these experiences.

1. PART 1 - THINGS AND EXPERIENCES
CROSS-CHANNEL ECOSYSTEMS 101
Andrea @Resmini
December 22 2016

2. TRADITIONALLY, DESIGN IMPLIES MAKING “THINGS”
The design tradition of “making” has its roots in the craft
Making has been associated with “things” for a long time

3. THE DESIGN OF SOFTWARE INTERFACES
An initial challenge to the idea of “making things” comes along
with software interfaces between the ‘70s and the ‘80s
Interaction design produces “objects” that are not tangible

4. A SHIFT TOWARDS THE INTANGIBLE
Through the years, intangibles have become the norm
Design thinking and service design are an example of this shift,
fields of practice and research that approach organizational
processes and services via a design mindset

5. STILL MAKING “THINGS”
Regardless of (in)tangibility, all of these practices are still
“traditional design” in the sense that they focus on producing an
“object””: it might be a UI, a service, a process for managing
patients in a hospital, a chair. Still, it’s a clearly bounded “thing”

6. CROSS-CHANNEL ECOSYSTEMS IMPLY A NEW FOCUS
The design process here gets centered on “an experience”
This shift brings in emergence, complexity, uncertainty,
and the necessity to move to a bird’s-eye, strategic view
It also brings whomever is having “an experience” center stage

7. WANT CLARITY OUT OF COMPLEXITY?
The name of the game then is information architecture
After all, the continuously changing flow of information from one
point to the other is the backbone of a cross-channel ecosystem

9. HERE IS AN EXAMPLE
Uber is a service. Sure. But:
in the context of cross-channel design, Uber is a part of a larger
ecosystem that is centered on personal transportation
To me, Uber is a piece of “going somewhere for some purpose”

10. THAT’S THE EXPERIENCE
Unless you are plain interested in just riding Uber cars, that is
(Hobbies are hobbies. Who am I to judge, right?)

11. NEITHER PRODUCT- NOR SERVICE-BOUNDED
The experience does not stop where “Uber the service” stops
Uber’s role also changes from completely marginal
to absolutely central depending on my own ongoing experience

12. THAT MEANS UBER DOES NOT OWN IT ALL
The experience itself is not owned nor it is fully managed or
controlled by any single company or organization

13. NEITHER DIGITAL NOR PHYSICAL, BUT BLENDED
A cross-channel ecosystem creates a blended actionable space
that straddles across digital and physical environments

14. THAT BLENDED SPACE
is the ecosystem inside which a specific experience takes place

15. PART 2 COMING DEC 29
“WAIT A SECOND. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, AN EXPERIENCE?”
Andrea @Resmini