Experiencer Design: Reclaiming Agency in a Designed World | Carlos Pompa | TEDxKigali
Carlos Pompa argues that experience designers focus narrowly on objectives and personas while ignoring the 'upstream' impact their designs have on individuals as experiencers. He introduces the concept of 'experiencer design' — the idea that designed experiences are actively shaping how people experience life — and calls on designers and consumers alike to become more conscious of this dynamic.
Summary
Carlos Pompa opens by observing that designed experiences permeate daily life, from the moment people check their phones to how they connect with friends and family digitally. He explains the standard experience design loop: designers set an objective (e.g., increase retention, clicks, or sales), define a persona as a synthesis of the target audience, and then continuously iterate on the experience to reach those objectives — a cycle visible in the constant updates users see in apps.
Pompa then introduces what he calls the central 'blind spot' in this process: the actual human being behind the persona. Using an analogy from a water treatment engineer, he explains that while it seems intuitive that what goes downstream is gone and irrelevant, in engineering every downstream device affects what happens upstream. He applies this to design: designers are so objective-obsessed that they never look 'upstream' at how the designed experience is affecting the individual as an experiencer.
To deepen the concept of 'experience,' Pompa draws on a quote from the historic Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama): 'In the seen, there is only the seen; in the heard, only the heard; in the cognized, only the cognized.' He illustrates this through sensory experiments — closing one's eyes to hear without projecting images, or muting sound to observe visuals without connecting them — to show how the mind integrates separate sensory channels into one unified experience. He argues this integration means that what we experience shapes us as experiencers, creating a feedback loop.
Bringing this back to design, Pompa coins the term 'experiencer design' to describe the phenomenon where designed experiences are not just products people use, but forces that shape how people experience life itself. Because this dynamic is ignored, a vacuum exists that gets filled by incentives, algorithms, or defaults rather than intentional human-centered consideration.
He closes with three calls to action: (1) start talking about this blind spot publicly, (2) urge designers to think beyond objectives and consider the lasting impact of repeatedly-used experiences on people, and (3) encourage consumers to pause after engaging with designed experiences and check in with how they feel — energized or depleted. Pompa's central conviction is that the only person who should be designing how you experience life is you.
Key Insights
- Pompa argues that the standard experience design process — objectives, persona, iterative experience loop — contains a critical blind spot: it ignores how the designed experience is shaping the actual individual behind the persona.
- Drawing on a water treatment engineering analogy, Pompa claims that just as downstream devices affect upstream ones, designed experiences have 'upstream' effects on individuals that designers consistently fail to examine.
- Pompa invokes the Buddha's teaching that each sensory channel (seen, heard, cognized) exists independently, and argues that the mind's integration of these channels into a unified experience means that what we experience actively reshapes us as experiencers in a continuous feedback loop.
- Pompa warns that because the impact on the experiencer is an unaddressed vacuum in design, it tends to be filled by external forces — algorithms, incentives, or defaults — rather than by conscious human intention.
- Pompa contends that while systemic change from designers may take time, individuals can reclaim agency right now by pausing after design experiences to consciously assess how they feel — a simple act he frames as becoming a more active, self-determining experiencer.
Topics
Transcript
[0:07] Hello. Um, can you hear me? All right. >> Yeah. Design experiences are everywhere. Think about your day so far. When you wake up, uh, you'll probably look at your phone and then design experiences, we start interacting with all of them. And then we go through our day maybe uh maybe we move into the digital spaces how we connect with our friends some or family it's all through design [0:37] experiences. So how those design experiences come to be. Experience design is a very very powerful tool. In just a few decades it has transformed how we interact with products having a smoother interactions and in general has impacted our life in many many ways. So how…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from TEDx Talks
Why context matters in AI | Jake Sortor | TEDxBoston
Jake Sortor argues that AI's greatest advantage will come from context engineering—strategically delivering the right information in the right form at the right time—rather than simply building larger models or collecting more data. He illustrates how historical intelligence failures (Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Iraq WMDs) resulted from context problems that AI systems will inherit unless intentionally designed to avoid them.
From All or Nothing to Something | Rana Nouman | TEDxMASE Youth
Rana Nouman shares her journey from an all-or-nothing mentality to embracing incremental progress and self-compassion. Through coaching studies and spiritual reflection, she learned to replace perfectionism with a growth mindset, discovering that small consistent actions lead to greater peace and fulfillment than pursuing perfection.
How to Accomplish Anything You Want in Just 10 Minutes a Day | Zee Najarian | TEDxRobinson Road
Zee Najarian argues that dedicating just 10 minutes daily to focused, intentional action can help accomplish any goal by leveraging neuroscience principles of myelin formation and building self-trust through kept promises. She presents a three-step framework: naming the chapter of your life you're writing, breaking goals into small 10-minute tasks, and protecting that time as sacred rather than convenient.
From Food Confusion to Food Confidence | Jinal Shah | TEDxAIIMSBhubaneswar
Jinal Shah argues that health should be measured by multiple parameters beyond weight, and that food confidence comes from eating traditional, time-tested food combinations at home rather than following extreme diets or social media trends. She emphasizes that sustainable health requires moving away from ultra-processed foods and returning to culturally-rooted eating practices.
How giving free haircuts taught me to connect with anyone | Joshua Coombes | TEDxIbiza
Joshua Coombes describes how offering free haircuts to homeless individuals transformed his understanding of human connection and dignity. He demonstrates that simple acts of presence and attention can bridge social divides and inspire broader cultural change toward compassion.