Usually, when we think of the word “experience,” it’s measured in years or months. It’s a form field to be filled out in an online resume. We all want a certain amount of experience — but not too much.
This isn’t an HR post, although wisely or unwisely, I’m becoming less timid about sharing the contents of my personal blog in professional settings. Instead I’m examining the term in the absolute broadest sense. Discussion encompasses my actual job — user experience consulting — but also moral, political, and philosophical questions.
“Experience”
1. We all have it. Whatever our age, whatever our history or demographics, we are shaped by our past and our memories.
2. Experience can be measured. It is both universal and highly subjective. That is the beautiful paradox. Whether it manifests in actions, in votes, or in survey results, experience is more than a figment or an intellectual abstraction.
3. Experience is not in infinite supply. All of us have a finite amount of time on this planet. In our daily lives, we have limited attention and ability to absorb information. As many of learned in Econ 101, scarcity creates value.
4. Experience is highly personal. It is a unique adaptation, by definition “squooshy.” It plays out our bodies and our brains. Nowhere else. While AI’s may effectively mimic or even surpass humans when it comes to specific skills and types of interactions, even the most sophisticated Large Language Models do not retain memories of specific conversations or form attachments to individual people.
5. Experience means it’s all right to care. As a system of measurement, it doesn’t exclude or invalidate emotion. Instead, it takes it as a given. But it also shouldn’t exclude rational or logical discourse! Anything that you ever read in a book or learned in a class becomes part of your experience.
6. Experience leaves room for difference.
7. Experience points out common ground.
8. Experience encompasses everything: different learning styles, modes of perception, and the way in which our memories can shift and alter over time.
9. Recognizing the value and validity of experience does not imply sophism or moral relativism. Quite the contrary! Let me explain why. It is a framework of knowledge — a grid and a rubric for making choices. As such, neither systems thinkers nor poets and activists need be afraid of it. The beauty of experience is that it can ground our common truths, while still making room for difference.
10. The fundamental unit of experience is not ASCII, or binary, or MIME-encoded video. It’s storytelling. If you ever read a book or saw a movie and enjoyed that work of fiction (or hated it) that’s experienced. Likewise with vivid dreams that stay with you after waking. If you can explain something as narrative — that is, with a beginning, a middle, and an end — then whether it is imaginary or real, it has become part of your experience.
With that in mind, I’ve left the last five items on this list blank.
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I’ll elaborate in future posts. Or you can just use the space to contemplate your own experiences — whether they’re stowed tidily in the past or continuing to impact your present.