Experience Design in Cities

3 design trends that are improving connectivity, community, and collaboration

Photos: Unsplash

It is an exciting time to be an experience designer. With the recognition that human-centered design is necessary across multiple industries, and thought-leaders pushing the urgent need for collaboration, the importance of experience design for health, diversity, and inclusion is being acknowledged and, more importantly, acted upon. An area where this is prevalent is in the urban design and planning world, where UX enables more effective solutions that deliver great urban experiences for citizens.

First life, then spaces, then buildings — the other way around never works.

—Jan Gehl

Over the past few weeks, I have gathered some key insights from events, Meetups, and general reading that I would like to share with you here.

1. Ownership will hinder connected cities; sharing is key

Ownership and silos within cities will hinder the advancement of user-centered design and the connectivity of cities. What I mean by this is that by sharing information and data within and between industries, we are more able to take the information into a new context and foster deeper understanding. As a result, more data points…