Pre-experience design refers to what some advertisers work to convey before the product is in the consumers hands. It is usually communicated through advertising, giving the potential user of a product the sense of how the product can benefit them. Over time, there has been some key examples, and in some of these cases, they've changed certain product realms completely.

Russell Davies recent essay points out a few of these examples. First noted, George Eastman's complete simplification of the photographic process:

"One of the stories at the heart of the presentation was about the way George Eastman reinvented photography with Kodak by massively simplifying the photographic process (as far as the customer was concerned). Unlike the messy and complicated procedure that had gone before would-be photographers only had to "Pull the Cord (to prepare the shutter), Turn the Key (to advance the film), and Press the Button (to release the shutter)". Mr Merholz is completely right about the way Eastman achieved so much by conceiving of what he was doing as a service rather than a product. Brilliant stuff. And an example to learn from.
But I think it's also worth looking at the way Eastman used advertising as 'pre-experience design'.

The slogan Eastman adopted was 'You Push The Button, We Do The Rest". Which is pithy, persuasive and memorable but not, on the face of it, true. As described above, the process was rather more complicated than that. But it got to the essence of the simplicity involved and, significantly, by altering expecations about how the experience was going to be, made it feel simpler than it actually was. (I imagine, I'm guessing here.)"

The Apple iPhone certainly changed the communications market, just as Apple has generally adjusted the emotions related to other products in the past (portable music / iPod, computing in general). Beyond the how to pinch, how to point, how to check email, how to answer a call sequence communicated in the early commercials, there is something more subtle in these ads that should be pointed out:

"Other phone manufacturers will tell you that doing the stuff you need on their phone is objectively, measurably just as quick as on an iPhone, but that people report the iPhone is quicker. I suspect quite a lot of that is because the music on the ads makes the pace the iPhone moves at just feel right. The ads are a component in the experience, they provide an implicit soundtrack to your experience.

Reading Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational made me think about this all over again. He tells of a number of experiments which illustrate the effect expectations have on experiences. Coffee served with fancy condiment dispensers nearby is reported as tasting better than the same coffee served next to tatty condiments. The price you pay for a drug alters it's efficacy. If you want people to enjoy the wine you serve you're better off investing in elegant glasses than decent wine. This is not new news. This is just how the brain works. Our feelings, our 'experience of experiences' is shaped by our expectations and it would sensible, if we're trying to create great experiences, that we align the expectations to help the case we want to make."

Should we expect to see more examples of pre-experience design surface moving into the future. It makes sense that this would be the case, but, corporate processes are very difficult to break.

Read Russell Davies full essay here.

Compilation of Apple iPhone ads can be seen here.

(source PSFK)