Designing for Connection: The Experience Ecosystem & Service Ecology
Design is the thoughtful expression of conceptual ideas in the form of visual elements to define purpose and achieve desired outcomes improving the human experience. Simply, design defines the relationships between people, products, and the world around them. However, as our lives traverse analog and digital experiences, the work of design has become less about creating and more about transforming systems. Service design lives in that space between creativity and complexity, where every interaction drives the cadence of experiences. To understand how a service truly works, designers don’t just map journeys, they map ecologies.
Mapping the Invisible
A service ecology map doesn’t just chart what a customer sees. It reveals the network behind the scenes, the people, partners, processes, and technologies that bring a service to life. It exists to:
- Map the actors and stakeholders who play a role in the service
- Understand the relationships, the creative friction that evolves the experience
- Imagine new service concepts by reorganizing how these actors connect and create value together
Used in workshops, mapping a service ecology can feel like zooming out on a city where you see how all the streets within the macro and micro systems intersect. It widens the creative field, transforming creative problem-solving into the craft of origination in constant flow and flux.
Ecology vs. Ecosystem
The language of systems matters. Ecosystem describes the structure, the framework of users, channels, and flows within experiences. Ecology describes the energy inside it, the relationships that make it thrive or collapse. Design lives in the tension between the two: form and function, structure and movement, system and story.
Every ecosystem is built on interactions that occur across channels and touchpoints. Channels are the mediums through which people engage, a website, a retail environment, a mobile app, a call center. Touchpoints are the moments that happen within those channels, the tap, the conversation, the purchase, the pause. They are where emotion and meaning take shape. Understanding both is essential: channels create access; touchpoints create connection. Friction can inhibit or empower the user within the ecosystem and the ecology overall.
Where the Wild Things Are
Two truths define every service:
- People’s needs are always changing
- People experience services across multiple channels and touchpoints
When viewed from a business perspective, these truths become tools for modeling value. By mapping costs and revenues across both the customer journey and the ecosystem of interactions, organizations can see where value is created, and where it disintegrates. In application, this means tracking, monitoring, and analyzing:
- Across the journey: Looking at costs and returns stage by stage reveals where customers find meaning and where friction exists
- Across touchpoints: Evaluating each interaction shows which channels drive connection, and which exhaust resources
This is the shift from user experience to service experience, where value isn’t just designed, it’s distributed.
The Living Blueprint
Within the ecosystem and ecology, the service design blueprint connects everything. The frontstage and backstage. The human and the operational. It’s not a static diagram, but a living map of how a service adapts to change. Service design, at its best, is an act of choreography and orchestration. It is how we synchronize business and behavior, intention and interaction. It’s not just about designing systems, it’s about designing relationships that can evolve and revolutionize the world around them. Because in the end, every service is an ecosystem of connection and ecology of energy. And when we understand the system, we don’t just make it work better, we make it feel alive.
See You in the Neighborhood: How Square is Turning Community, Data, and Innovation into a Movement
Square has always been more than a payments company. It’s a brand that lives at the intersection of community, creativity, and commerce empowering small businesses to grow and thrive. This week, with Square’s 16th anniversary and the launch of its new brand platform, “See You in the Neighborhood,” that message couldn’t have been clearer.
The campaign reminded me why I’ve always admired Square’s approach: it’s human. It’s local. It’s honest. And it’s grounded in the idea that real economic change starts right where people live and work in neighborhoods.
Community and Culture: A Brand with Heart
The new “See You in the Neighborhood” campaign captures something essential about Square, its home at the crossroads (or four corners) of community, culture, authenticity, and economic empowerment. The storytelling felt personal and genuine, not polished to perfection but alive with real voices and emotions.
As someone who grew up skateboarding, I loved seeing the Neighbors Skate Shop spot. There’s nothing that represents community quite like a group of skaters building something together. The Ggiata Deli video hit a different note the owner’s voiceover carried a sense of authenticity and pride that you can’t fake. And then, of course, Killer Mike, who delivered a masterclass in how small businesses drive big change. His words reminded the viewer that economic empowerment isn’t just a brand value; it’s a mission.
All the details, the handwritten signs, the real business owners, the texture of their stories, made the campaign feel unmistakably Square.
Turning Data into Actionable Insights
Of course, great storytelling is only part of the equation. Square’s superpower is its ability to connect those stories to data and to reveal what’s really happening in the economy at ground level.
I recently came across an article about Square’s restaurant data that explored how tipping behaviors are changing in today’s volatile economy. The insights went far beyond payment trends. They painted a portrait of resilience how restaurants and their teams are adapting, surviving, and even thriving through constant change.
That’s the kind of data storytelling that fuels strong strategy. It’s not just about reporting numbers; it’s about revealing human behavior and helping business owners make smarter, more confident decisions. Square’s insights serve as a cultural zeitgeist.
Innovation and the Next Frontier: Cryptocurrency
Recently, my attention shifted from consumer data to digital currency. Years ago, Jack Dorsey encouraged businesses using Square POS to experiment with Bitcoin payments, a move that felt visionary then, and even more relevant now.
Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley published a report titled “Asset Allocation Considerations for Cryptocurrencies,” encouraging investors to incorporate crypto as part of a diversified portfolio. That kind of validation from major financial institutions could reignite consumer interest, and when it does, businesses will need partners they trust to navigate the shift.
That’s where Square’s early leadership in crypto shines. The brand’s long-standing belief in financial empowerment, transparency, and innovation gives it the credibility to help merchants take that next step. Integrating crypto education and adoption into its neighborhood-driven storytelling could bridge the cultural gap, turning curiosity into confidence, and confidence into commerce.
Looking Ahead
Square’s story is about connection, between people, businesses, and ideas. From “See You in the Neighborhood” to the data insights that reveal what’s happening behind the counter, to forward-looking initiatives like Bitcoin payments, everything points to the same truth: Square is building an ecosystem where community and commerce grow together.
That’s what makes this brand special. It’s not just technology. It’s not just marketing. It’s a movement, one that starts with a conversation at the counter and reverberates through the neighborhood.
The New Era of Shipping and Marketing
Resilience and Recovery
As supply chains recover from years of disruption and investors brace for economic headwinds, the transportation sector is being reshaped by creativity, strategy, and resilience. Many organizations remain in triage mode, but forward-thinking leaders are implementing reframing models to uncover new solutions. The opportunity now lies not in returning to what once was, but in designing smarter, more responsible approaches to marketing and operations that help organizations thrive amid uncertainty.
Navigating Economic Uncertainty
The path to stability begins with understanding the possible shapes of recovery. Economists identify several models, from V-shaped rebounds to L-shaped stagnations, each offering a different vision for how the economy might evolve. The most realistic scenario may be Y-shaped, reflecting a divided recovery where some sectors rebound quickly while others lag behind. For transportation leaders, this means preparing for uneven conditions and making deliberate decisions about how to allocate time, resources, and budget. There is no such thing as “business as usual.” Resiliency now requires agility, innovation, and foresight.
The Global Shipping Outlook
After years of volatility caused by the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and inflationary pressures, global shipping began to stabilize in 2023. Capacity became more predictable, but volume and reliability remain challenges. As infrastructure investments grow, overcapacity and pricing pressures will define the near-term future. Even with uncertainty, the industry is entering a new era of transformation, driven by decarbonization, digitalization, and an increased demand for transparency across the supply chain.
Seven Shipping Trends You Need to Know
1. Market Normalization with Caution
Shipping has returned to predictable capacity levels, but volumes remain low. The industry is likely to face continued volatility and potential pricing wars as carriers compete for stability.
2. Globalization with Interference
Global trade continues to expand, but rising geopolitical tensions have slowed the pace. Companies are increasingly pursuing domestic manufacturing and distributed sourcing to mitigate risk.
3. Decarbonization and the Cost of Sustainability
The journey to net-zero emissions is underway, requiring significant investment in green technology, infrastructure, and alternative fuels. These costs will inevitably be passed through the supply chain to the end customer, emphasizing the need for transparent communication about corporate responsibility.
4. Transloading on the Rise
Transloading, shifting freight from international to domestic intermodal transport, continues to gain momentum. This approach increases speed to market and agility, allowing shippers to respond rapidly to changing market conditions.
5. Transparency as the Antidote to Information Asymmetry
Information asymmetry remains one of the greatest barriers to efficiency. True progress will come from transparent, synchronized data systems that enhance visibility from source to customer, creating shared value across the supply chain.
6. Standardization for Stability and the Risk of Stagnation
Standardization streamlines operations and ensures consistency, but it can also constrain innovation. The challenge for the future is to balance operational efficiency with creative experimentation and technological evolution.
7. Investing for a Sustainable Future
Investment in infrastructure and equipment, from ports to chassis manufacturing, is accelerating. These efforts signal confidence in a more sustainable, resilient logistics ecosystem, built to withstand future disruptions.
Smart and Responsible Marketing
In times of uncertainty, marketing is not an expense, it’s an investment in relevance and resilience. Companies that remain visible and continue to communicate effectively through downturns recover faster and gain market share. Smart and responsible marketing begins with empathy and strategy: understanding evolving customer behaviors, reaffirming commitments, and designing communications that reflect authenticity and trust.
The Five Principles for a New Marketing Era
- Refresh the Customer Mindset: Identify new motivations, pain points, and opportunities. Conduct interviews, surveys, and persona development to uncover actionable insights that inform both strategy and creative execution.
- Reassure the Customer: Instill confidence through consistent communication, thought leadership, and customer-first initiatives. Use content marketing, sales acceleration programs, and community engagement to build trust and loyalty.
- Renew the Vision and Strategy: Revisit brand principles, reposition offerings, and define a compelling purpose that reflects current realities. Measure brand health regularly to ensure alignment with customer needs.
- Reassess the Work: Continuously calibrate creative and marketing efforts. Measure effectiveness, experiment with A/B testing, and apply insights from analytics to optimize outcomes.
- Recover and Reimagine: Adopt a customer-centric mindset. Innovate new products and experiences, embrace digital-first marketing, and collaborate internally to improve efficiency and employee engagement.
Integrating Sales and Marketing
The line between marketing and sales has blurred. B2B customers increasingly self-educate, expecting seamless digital experiences that mirror consumer brands. A unified approach, where marketing attracts and nurtures leads while sales converts and deepens relationships, is critical. Customer journey mapping helps visualize this integration, ensuring every touchpoint, from awareness to advocacy, is purposeful, relevant, and measurable.
Transformation is Now
Supply chain transformation is not a distant goal — it’s happening now. Leaders in shipping and logistics have an opportunity to redefine their industries by combining operational excellence with strategic creativity. Through resilience, innovation, and empathy, the sector can navigate uncertainty, embrace sustainability, and enter a new era of connection between commerce, community, and the planet.
Creative Friction
Creative Friction: How to Engineer Ideas
Creative friction is the purposeful collision of different perspectives—disciplines, departments, industries, functions, demographics, and psychographics—to generate new ways of thinking. Done well, it turns tension into forward motion. The goal isn’t to “win” an argument; it’s to make the work, and the outcomes, unmistakably better.
What Creative Friction Is (and Isn’t)
A design choice, not an accident. Invite strategy to rub shoulders with design, media with technology, transportation with education—on the same brief, at the same time.
- Divergent by design: Friction widens the map from a single “right path” to many promising routes that can be tested, combined, or discarded.
- Different from UX friction: In user experience, we remove friction for customers. In creative development, we add the right friction for teams to unlock insight. Knowing when each applies is a leadership skill.
Why It Works
- It broadens inputs: Cross-functional conversations surface references, research, and lived experience a single discipline would never bring alone.
- It balances strengths: Some people think in words, others in systems, others in visuals or sound. Friction translates across modes and makes ideas travel farther.
- It builds inclusion: Diverse voices are not just present—they’re weighed and integrated. Brand decisions become more representative and more resilient.
- It speeds learning: When research and making happen in parallel (formal workshops + informal hallway checks), cycles compress and quality rises.
Where to Put the Friction
Upfront research
Blend formal (interviews, co-creation, data pulls) with informal (quick pulses, observation). Use participatory methods when you need voices in the room; use observational methods when you need unfiltered behavior.
Inspiration & exploration
Host recurring share-outs where people bring one reference that reframes the brief. Debate why it works (or doesn’t) for the brand and audience.
Internal reviews
Put account, design, and a “5,000-foot” brand lens in the same critique. Retire the “my idea vs. your idea” dynamic. The only winner is the brand-right solution.
In-market iteration
Treat assets as evolving. Digital and real-time environments let you tune creative based on performance and feedback—without waiting for the next campaign cycle.
How to Lead It (Without Chaos)
Set psychological safety. Make it explicit: sparks welcome, perfection not required. Early shares beat finished shares.
Design multiple avenues to contribute. Some thrive in big rooms; others prefer async notes or small huddles. Offer both.
Operationalize curiosity. Schedule a monthly “cool hunt” and debate references, tech, and trends. The point isn’t consensus—it’s clarity.
Separate pride from ego. Pride fuels craft; fragile ego blocks progress. Aim critique at the work, not the person.
Map friction vs. flow. Decide where you want friction (exploration, critique) and where you want flow (handoffs, production, customer experience).
Outcomes You Can Expect
More (and better) ideas through deliberate divergent thinking.
Faster velocity as research and design co-evolve.
Stronger decisions that align with strategy, customer insight, and brand truth.
Business impact via new products, services, and experiences shaped by many—not just a few.
A 30-Day Starter Plan
Run one cross-functional review per key project. Invite at least one outsider to the core team. Prompt: “What does this mean for the brand?”
Adopt the “Spark Rule.” Share early. Ask “What if…?” three times before judging.
Launch a 45-minute monthly cool hunt. Each person brings one reference; discuss why it matters.
Create a friction map. For your current workflow, mark “Friction” (explore) vs. “Flow” (execute). Adjust meetings and milestones accordingly.
Two Useful Analogies
Jazz & jam bands: Improvisation works when each instrument listens, responds, and leaves space. That’s creative friction in motion.
Curation: Great curators push storytellers beyond their “one way” version so it resonates now, not just in the past. Friction keeps stories—and brands—alive.
Closing Thought
Creative friction isn’t conflict—it’s choreography. Invite difference on purpose. Give it structure. Protect the room. Then let the best idea win because it is brand-right, customer-true, and future-ready.
Fricition is not resistance. it is the catalyst for creativyty. When multidisciplinary teams collaborate, the impossible is made possible.
Creative friciong is the catalyst for divergent thinking. and going beyond the unknown
Design: A Catalyst for Cultural Change
There was a time when the internet was wonderfully weird. When MySpace let you hack your own profile HTML. When GeoCities Neighborhoods pulsed with strange, animated GIFs and scrolling marquees. When creativity wasn’t optimized, it was expressed. Back in the day, the internet wasn’t designed for brands. It was designed for people. We built for ourselves, not for algorithms, templates, or standards. And then, ironically, the tools meant to make the web more creative began to tame it.
When Was the Last Time You Made Something Weird?
Today, we have more self-service creative tools than ever before - Canva, Wix, Figma, Instagram Stories, TikTok - yet the web has never looked more uniform. In our pursuit of scalability and polish, we’ve standardized creativity into a grid. We’ve built for others — not for ourselves. Brand standards, design systems, and templates have made creation efficient, but also sterile. They’ve become the invisible architecture of conformity. And yet, the pendulum is swinging back. We’re seeing a new era of creative rebellion — one that values improvisation, imperfection, and individuality. The internet is rediscovering its human side.
Why Design Systems Still Matter
This isn’t an argument against systems. It’s an argument for living systems. Design should never be static — it should evolve. A true design system isn’t a museum of patterns; it’s a workshop for continuous change. The best design systems are built for adaptability. They empower cultural transformation as much as they enforce visual consistency. They integrate adaptive research — connecting real consumer insights with evolving creative expression. In other words, a design system shouldn’t just document — it should listen. Think of it like jazz. The structure (the pattern library) is there, but the magic happens in the improvisation. When designers are empowered to evolve a system — to adapt, remix, and respond — design becomes a living dialogue between brand and audience.
Honoring Friction: Rethinking Accessibility
The future of design must also embrace friction, not eliminate it. Designer and disability advocate Liz Jackson challenges how our industry talks about empathy. Too often, “inclusive design” becomes a checklist for compliance, a way to meet standards rather than connect with people. She reminds us: empathy isn’t pity. It’s partnership. True inclusion requires participation. It demands that people with disabilities are part of the design process, not just the end users of it.
Consider Domino’s Pizza, which was sued in 2016 by a blind customer unable to order through their website or app because they weren’t compatible with screen readers. When the Ninth Circuit Court ruled in 2019 that Domino’s digital properties were covered under the ADA, it changed everything: websites and apps became extensions of physical spaces and therefore, public accommodations. That decision wasn’t just about compliance. It was about access, about ensuring everyone can participate in digital life. Inclusion should not be seen as a burden, but as an engine for better design. Honoring friction — the things that make us different — leads to more thoughtful, humane systems.
Why Business Needs Design
Impact
Design drives at three levels:
- Tactical: product-level innovation
- Systemic: service-level transformation
- Experiential: shaping culture and behavior
Partnerships
Businesses must collaborate with educational institutions, start-ups, and consultancies to keep design thinking fresh and relevant.
Emotion
The most powerful brands don’t just meet needs — they create meaning. Design is how companies connect emotionally, not just transactionally, with their audiences.
The Intersection of Strategy and Design
Strategy defines why. Design expresses how. They are two sides of the same idea — one logical, one lyrical. Design without strategy is decoration; strategy without design is abstraction. When they intersect, they form identity — the moment when concept meets clarity.
What Is a Brand, Really?
A brand isn’t just a logo, or even a story. It’s an evolving relationship between company and culture. Design theorist Debbie Millman calls branding a historical reflection of our collective desires — a mirror of who we want to be. Designer Forest Young calls it the intersection of math and magic — the blend of precision and intuition that creates something memorable. And at Wieden+Kennedy, branding is understood through product, service, voice, visual, and behavior — the full ecosystem of experience.
At its core, a brand is four things:
- Concept: The idea that drives meaning.
- Character: The personality that shapes how it behaves.
- Container: The visual and verbal identity that holds it together.
- Clarity: The discipline that keeps it focused and understood.
The New Creative Renaissance
We are entering an era where creativity is being reborn, not as rebellion against systems, but as a redefinition of them. It’s about making design systems flexible enough to allow experimentation. About using research not to restrict, but to evolve. About building brands that are not static symbols, but adaptive organisms. So, when was the last time you made something weird? Maybe that’s where the future of creativity begins, in the courage to color outside the lines again.
The Retail Apocalypse & Renaissance of Retail Modality
If you believe the headlines, retail is dying. But if you look closer, what’s actually happening is more like an evolution, one driven by technology, cultural shifts, and a fundamental redefinition of what it means to “shop.” At the 2019 National Retail Federation (NRF) “Retail’s Big Show,” that transformation was on full display. Despite a partial government shutdown that paused federal economic data releases, the message was clear: retail is far from over. It’s simply becoming something new.
The Big Picture
Retail remains one of the nation’s economic cornerstones:
- 3.8 million establishments across the U.S.
- 29 million jobs, supporting 1 in 4 American workers
- $822.5 billion in labor income
- $1.2 trillion contribution to GDP
- And yet, behind those staggering numbers lies a massive shift in how and where we buy.
In 2018, total U.S. retail sales reached $5.3 trillion, with $4.8 trillion from brick-and-mortar and $525 billion from e-commerce. A year later, retail grew to $5.5 trillion, a modest 3% increase — but e-commerce grew 15% year-over-year, dwarfing physical store growth at 2%. This isn’t just incremental change. It’s a reshaping of the entire landscape.
The Retail Apocalypse
2018 saw the collapse of household names: Toys “R” Us, Sears, Mattress Firm, Claire’s, Brookstone, and Nine West. Department stores like Macy’s, J.Crew, and Ralph Lauren struggled with unprofitable stores and sinking stock prices. To many, it looked like extinction. But as in nature, extinction often precedes renewal. While malls are dying, models of retail are multiplying. We’ve moved from markets to department stores, from catalogs to malls, from multichannel to omnichannel — and now toward something new: harmony. The future of retail isn’t about physical vs. digital. It’s about how the two work together to deliver frictionless, personalized, and meaningful experiences.
Winners in the New Economy
Even in a so-called apocalypse, there are success stories. Stocks are up for Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Nordstrom, Home Depot, Tiffany, Costco, and nearly every discount retailer. Dollar stores, in particular, are quietly taking over America. There are now more dollar stores than the six largest U.S. retailers combined (Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, CVS, and Walgreens). Dollar General and Dollar Tree alone operate 30,000 locations. Meanwhile, companies like Walmart are hiring 25,000 personal shoppers to handle curbside pickup — blending convenience with human touch.
Trends Defining Retail’s Next Era
At NRF 2019, a few themes stood out that point to what’s next:
1. Sustainability & Transparency
From blockchain-backed supply chains to zero-waste commitments, sustainability has moved from buzzword to business imperative. Kroger’s Zero Hunger | Zero Waste initiative, which includes eliminating single-use plastic bags by 2025, sets a new standard for purpose-driven retail.
2. Frictionless Shopping
Consumers don’t distinguish between physical and digital — they just want convenience. The “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS) model is now mainstream: more than half of U.S. shoppers are aware of it, and 70% of those have used it.
3. Retail as Experience
“Retailtainment” is real. According to NRF, 58% of U.S. consumers are interested in retail events, and 82% attended one in 2018. REI’s outdoor adventures, TOMS’ in-store VR experiences, and Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue renovation all prove the same point: shopping can be transformative.
4. Digital Natives vs. Legacy Retailers
Direct-to-consumer brands like Away and Glossier are winning by merging product, experience, and story. Legacy retailers are responding through reinvention — partnerships, pop-ups, and tech integrations designed to close the physical-digital divide.
5. Privacy & Personalization
Consumers are increasingly aware of their data — and willing to share it when it benefits them. “Zero-party data” (information intentionally shared by customers) is becoming a cornerstone of trust-based personalization.
6. Polarization of the Market
Luxury and discount segments are thriving, while the middle is hollowing out. Consumers either want exclusivity or affordability — there’s little room left for the in-between.
Kroger: A Case Study in Transformation
Kroger is a powerful example of how a legacy retailer can redefine itself. Under CEO Rodney McMullen, who started as a part-time stock clerk in 1978, Kroger has become a technology-driven innovator. In partnership with Microsoft, Kroger launched a “connected store” pilot powered by Azure cloud and IoT sensors — featuring smart shelves that display real-time prices, nutritional data, and personalized offers. They’re also:
- Partnering with Ocado for robotic delivery.
- Expanding Instacart and Alibaba collaborations.
- Testing driverless delivery with Nuro.
- Opening a digital HQ in Cincinnati and an innovation lab at the University of Cincinnati.
- Introducing OptUp, an app promoting healthier food choices through data science.
McMullen outlined his vision at NRF 2019:
- Retail won’t go away — it will evolve faster than ever.
- Retail will be both digital and physical — customers will simply choose the most convenient modality.
- Retail will be purpose-driven — solving problems for both people and planet.
- Retail will disrupt advertising — data-driven precision marketing will replace mass messaging.
The New Retail Reality
The so-called “apocalypse” is really a power transfer — first from retailers to brands, and now, increasingly, from brands to machines. As artificial intelligence and machine learning take hold, purchasing decisions will rely more on product attributes — performance, price, convenience — and less on brand reputation. AI will become the ultimate comparison shopper, optimizing every decision. The challenge for retailers and brands alike is not survival, but relevance — finding harmony between digital and physical, scale and soul, efficiency and empathy. Retail isn’t dying. It’s being reborn.
Beyond User Experience: Design Principles for the Human Experience
The concept of user experience (UX) feels modern, born from the rise of digital interfaces, apps, and analytics, but the mindset behind it has existed for centuries. The practice of designing with empathy, experimentation, and systems thinking is rooted in disciplines as old as science, psychology, anthropology, engineering, and architecture. Even more surprising: many of UX’s foundational ideas trace their roots to the Midwest. Before Silicon Valley made “design thinking” a business strategy, innovators from Ohio to Michigan to Iowa were quietly shaping the principles that would become the UX movement.
The Midwest Origins of UX
Consider the lineage:
- David & Tom Kelley, founders of IDEO, were raised in Barberton, Ohio.
- Janice Fraser, co-founder of Adaptive Path, studied at Ohio University; Mike Kuniavsky attended the University of Michigan; Jeffrey Veen graduated from Calvin College.
- The Information Architecture Institute, a cornerstone of digital UX, was founded by Louis Rosenfeld (University of Michigan) and Christine Wodtke (Iowa City).
- Karl Fast, a leading voice in UX education, taught at Kent State University.
- Midwest UX, the annual conference now in its seventh year, was born from the collaboration between Columbus’s Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA).
These roots matter, not just because of geography, but because of values.
Midwestern Principles
The Midwest has long been known for a set of enduring truths that extend beyond region or industry. They’ve also quietly shaped the principles of user experience design itself.
- Honesty & Integrity: An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
- Respect, Kindness & Empathy: The neighborly instinct to understand others.
- Dedication & Reliability: You can depend on us, always.
- Curiosity & Invention: A relentless desire to improve systems and tools, think Henry Ford and the assembly line.
- Quality & Excellence: A belief that good work should endure.
- Collaboration: The understanding that progress happens together.
These principles, authentic, humble, and quietly radical, helped establish UX as more than a technical discipline. They made it human.
Before UX was a formal field, these same values drove the great thinkers and designers who sought to improve the human experience long before “user experience” was a term.
Case Study 1: Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Curiosity
We know Leonardo da Vinci as an artist and inventor, but he might also be considered the world’s first UX designer. His notebooks show an obsession with how people interact, with tools, with the body, with nature itself.
While we don’t have his explicit “design principles,” author Michael Gelb distilled da Vinci’s creative mindset into seven timeless practices:
- Curiosity: A relentless quest for learning.
- Independent Thinking: Testing knowledge through experience and mistakes.
- Refine Your Senses: Especially sight, as a way to truly see the world.
- Embrace Uncertainty: Finding possibility within ambiguity.
- Balance Art & Science: Merging logic and imagination.
- Mind & Body: Cultivating grace, fitness, and poise.
- Interconnectedness: Recognizing that everything is connected, systems thinking before systems had a name.
Leonardo didn’t separate art from engineering or science from beauty. His approach foreshadowed the very idea of design thinking, that empathy, experimentation, and synthesis lead to better outcomes.
Case Study 2: Dieter Rams and the Discipline of Simplicity
Centuries later, Dieter Rams, the legendary designer behind Braun’s iconic products, brought a similar philosophy into the industrial age. His work, minimal, functional, timeless, redefined modern design and laid the groundwork for what we now call human-centered design.
Rams articulated ten principles of good design, each one rooted in respect for people:
- It is innovative, useful, and aesthetic.
- It makes a product understandable, honest, and unobtrusive.
- It is long-lasting, detailed, and environmentally friendly.
- It is “as little design as possible,” less, but better.
Before there were UX heuristics, there was Rams. His pursuit of simplicity wasn’t aesthetic minimalism; it was emotional clarity, a belief that good design should never get in the way of human intention.
Demystifying User Experience
As UX evolved from intuition to industry, it formalized what people like Leonardo and Rams had always known: design is a bridge between people and possibility. Let’s trace the evolution.
From Science to Systems
The scientific method, observation, hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, gave us a framework for curiosity. It became the foundation for research-driven design. Data became insight; insight became information; information became architecture. Information Architecture (IA) emerged to organize and structure content for clarity and accessibility, helping people find what they need and complete tasks with ease. From there, User Interface (UI) design brought interaction into focus, making digital systems intuitive and responsive. Interaction Design (IxD) added emotional nuance, defining how users feel during those interactions. And Usability, as defined by Jakob Nielsen, introduced measurable qualities, learnability, efficiency, memorability, error prevention, and satisfaction. Finally, User Experience (UX) emerged as the holistic integration of all these disciplines, a recognition that every touchpoint, from product to service to brand, contributes to how people perceive value and meaning.
Beyond UX: Toward the Human Experience
When Don Norman coined the term “user experience” at Apple in 1993, he was expanding the lens beyond usability. He saw that the interface was just one small part of a larger emotional and cultural ecosystem. Today, that lens has widened again, from user experience to human experience. Designers and strategists aren’t just shaping digital interactions, they’re shaping the moments, emotions, and relationships that define our lives.
That’s why human-centered design, as championed by IDEO, Stanford’s d.school, and others, remains so powerful. It starts not with technology, but with empathy. It ends not with efficiency, but with impact. As Tim Brown of IDEO defines it, “Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”
Empathize. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test. It’s a process, but more importantly, it’s a philosophy: one that reconnects creativity with humanity.
Designing for Humanity
So where do we go from here? If UX was about usability, and CX about consistency, HX is about meaning. It challenges us to move beyond interfaces and into experiences, beyond systems and into stories, beyond design thinking and into human thinking. The next chapter of design isn’t about making technology easier to use. It’s about making life easier to live.
Order a Pizza Without Leaving Hulu
Hulu just turned “What’s for dinner?” into a call-to-action. At this year’s Hulu Upfront presentation in New York, the streaming platform unveiled a bold new kind of ad experience in partnership with Pizza Hut, one that lets viewers order food right from the screen they’re watching. No QR codes, no app-switching, no second screen required.
Dubbed an “in-stream purchase unit,” the new format blends commerce and entertainment into a single seamless moment, and it could redefine what an ad break means. Instead of interrupting the viewing experience, it becomes an extension of it. Watch. Crave. Click. Eat.
For Hulu, this is more than a gimmick. It’s part of a larger effort to reimagine advertising for the streaming era, one that keeps viewers engaged and gives brands a direct line from awareness to action. With users spending an average of 50 minutes per session, Hulu’s audience is already leaning in. Now, the platform wants to make that engagement transactional.
The innovation arrives as audiences continue migrating from desktops to mobile devices and connected TVs. Hulu’s strategy anticipates this shift, promising interactive ads that scale across screens and formats. The Pizza Hut partnership is the first slice of that vision — a preview of a streaming future where buying, watching, and craving all happen in one place.
In a world where commerce is everywhere, Hulu and Pizza Hut may have just delivered the next evolution of “shoppable media,” the frictionless intersection of content and consumption.
ACTIONABLE!NSIGHTS
- Mash-up: Hulu × Pizza Hut
- Customer Experience: Contextual and seamless ordering
- Customer Engagement: High dwell-time, content-integrated interaction
- Digital Behavior: From multi-screen consumption to single-screen conversion
Food for the Price of an Instagram Photo
In London, a restaurant once let you pay for dinner with a photo. The Picture House, a pop-up restaurant by Birds Eye, flipped the dining experience by replacing the bill with an Instagram post. Diners were encouraged to photograph their meals and share them with the hashtag #BirdsEyeInspirations, turning each dish into a form of digital currency.
The experiment was more than a marketing stunt; it was an early glimpse into the social economy that now drives much of consumer behavior. In exchange for posting a photo, guests sampled Birds Eye’s new range of chargrilled chicken and fish, and in doing so, transformed their feeds into ad space.
At the time, Birds Eye’s research revealed a cultural shift already underway: more than half of Britons regularly took photos of their meals, while nearly one in ten couldn’t go a single day without snapping their food. What began as a quirky social habit had evolved into a performance, artfully arranged plates, perfect lighting, and the pursuit of the ideal “food selfie.”
The Picture House capitalized on that moment. It wasn’t just about frozen food, it was about frozen moments: the visual, shareable proof of experience. Birds Eye’s campaign, “Food of Life,” aimed to redefine how people perceived frozen food by focusing on how people actually eat, interact, and share in the digital age.
In hindsight, the campaign feels prophetic. Long before TikTok recipes, influencer “food drops,” and #foodtok virality, Birds Eye understood that meals weren’t just being eaten, they were being broadcast. The act of sharing had become part of the experience itself.
ACTIONABLE!NSIGHTS
- Mash-up: Birds Eye × Pop-Up Restaurant
- Digital Currency: Photos for food
- Social Behavior: Food as content
- Social Influence: Sharing as payment
- Technology: Mobile and Instagram
All You Can't Eat
"All you can't eat" is based on the simple observation that lots of restaurants offer meals in such huge portions that people either can't eat them all or finish them only because they simply don't want to leave food on their plate.
Ogilvy & Mather saw this as an opportunity to help people and restaurant owners in Dusseldorf stop feeling bad about overeating or wasting food in this way and do something positive instead.
They approached local restaurants and invited them to place an "All You Can't Eat" sticker on dishes commonly served in huge portions to let people know they could order a smaller portion for the same price. The money that the restaurant saved was then donated to the food bank.
This very simple but smart solution is helping lots of people in Düsseldorf feel better about themselves. Restaurants are wasting less food, people aren't overeating just because they still have food on their plates and Düsseldorfer Tafel is getting a much needed cash injection that's helping to feed over 7,000 hungry people every day.
There's an opportunity for food banks all over the world to develop similar schemes to help feed the hungry in their communities.
All You Can't Eat - When you can't eat anymore, there's someone who can.