#9: The rhythm of an experience
And why you should always have a strong ending
👋 Hi friends, it's Hesam with issue #9 of 4 bits. 4 bits is a biweekly newsletter where I share thoughts and musings on how to build memorable experiences.
Two quick life updates:
🚜 Booked a side trip this summer to visit Belgium. We'll be staying at a renovated farmhouse we found on Airbnb. The Airbnb lists sheep and chicken watching as a perk, so naturally I'm excited.
🗺️ Working on the summer study abroad course I'll be teaching in Amsterdam. It's a course I haven't taught in 4 years (design thinking) and I'm scrapping everything and starting fresh. Trying my best to turn the city into our classroom. I’m including a number of asynchronous activities and experiences that give people the space to explore the city while learning along the way.
The rhythm of an experience
The last day of a class can be a hit or miss.
If you end slowly and predictably, it can feel like a drag. Tumbleweeds fly by. Just make it end already!
I struggled with the last day of class for years. I used to think that the way to end a course was with final presentations and a quick thank you for all the hard work people put in throughout the semester.
That was a mistake.
I now know that you have to create an opportunity to reflect and connect the dots.
And one of the best ways to do that is through a learning journey map.
Map the highs and lows
A journey map is used by marketing teams as a way to visualize the steps a customer takes from the moment they realize they have a need, to searching for options, to purchasing a solution, to the post-purchase support.
Journey maps can take different forms. LEGO even created their own version of a journey map that they call an “experience wheel”.
Creating a journey map can be useful outside of marketing. When designing any human-centered experience, a journey map allows you to highlight what people are doing, thinking, and feeling every step along the way. We use journey maps as a design method in our courses to better understand who we’re designing for.
But what if you used journey maps as a way to empower people to reflect on their own journey, and by doing so, help close out their experience in a meaningful way?
If you’re at the end of a learning experience, a learning journey map is a fantastic way to create that environment.
With a learning journey map, you ask the learner to reflect on two attributes: their emotional journey (what they were thinking and feeling at different moments in time) and their learning journey (the amount of learning at each step of their journey).
During our final class last week, I had whiteboards arranged throughout the room. After the last team presentation, instead of saying thank you, I ask the student teams to map their journey.
What starts off as a boring recollection of the facts turns into a realization of the massive effort and learning they've made along the way. I find this exercise as an opportunity to reflect, remember, and to end the final class with a feeling of pride for the journey people have made.
You can feel the energy in the room change as people start to remember more and more of what they accomplished. And as they map out their journey, they’ll often notice contrast - moments where the learning and emotion don't match perfectly.
In an entrepreneurship course, it could be that customer interview that helped the founders realize they were headed in the wrong direction. They felt terrible (low point on emotion) but it was pivotal in deciding what to do next (high point on learning).
It’s unlikely that people will remember every moment in their journey. But the moments they do recall make a difference in how they think about the quality of the experience.
The peak-end theory of psychology illustrates this: studies (research! science!) show that people largely judge an experience based on how they felt at the most intense moments and at the end, not an average of the overall experience.
And that's why we need variability in everything that we do.
Experiences are music
A written piece where every sentence is the same length and structure can be monotonous and boring. Instead, you vary the sentence structure. You switch up the flow.
If you should write music, then how can we make experiences like music? How can you make your experiences sing?
Think about the last time you saw your favorite artist perform live. While you probably can’t remember every song they performed, you remember the ones that were your favorites. You forget the duds. And while it would have been great to hear your favorites non-stop for an entire concert, it would also be exhausting. We need room to breathe.
When designing experiences, we need to vary the rhythm. And we need to realize that while people won’t remember every detail, they’ll remember the peaks, the intensity, and how it all came together in the end.