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Experience designers — those who create an experience of a product, a service, a process, an event or an environment — are the new interface between products and clients.

What do you want to be when you grow up?” Remember that question from way back when you were a child? Then, the choice was so limited that you couldn’t throw the inquisitive adult off balance with your reply even if you wanted to. Not so any longer. With the advent of the era of technology, a host of new and exotic job titles is finding its way into the lucrative career option lists. Ask any youngster today, and he or she is very likely to come up with a new-age answer like “user experience designer”.

Yes, you heard it right. An experience designer.

An emerging field, experience designing is all about designing or creating the kind of “experience” that you or your employer want your clients to have. Experts in the field describe it as a new discipline. “Experience design is indeed a still evolving job title which is in its nascent stage as a career option, not to mention as a field of study,” says Vikram Sen, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management in Joka. Sen, who has started his own computer technology education centre in Calcutta, nevertheless points out its meaning in “its narrowest, most technical sense”. And that, he explains, “is the computer-generated visual and psychological space or environment created in order for a consumer to relate to particular products, services or events”.

Insiders point out that in today’s consumerist society, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to create an interface between their products and services and the people that they are trying to reach out to. The demand, they say, for experience designers is growing steadily.

To illustrate further, Sen points out that “today, everything needs to be advertised. Gone are the days when you would walk into your neighbourhood grocery store and ask your grocer to give you, say, sugar or rice and be content with what he delivers. In the changing scenario, you would go to a shopping mall like Spencer’s or Big Bazaar and pick out the same items, but you would be choosing a brand. And this choice would be based on a number of things — including the kind of impression you have created in your mind about this product, whether from its packaging or from the commercials you have seen on television, posters or in the print medium. The person behind the creation of this impression is the experience designer”.

Calcutta-based career advisor Duhita Dhar points out, “In this context, it is in the field of advertising that experience designers are most required. Advertising is all about creating catalysts between products and people and experience design goes a step beyond to make it an experience by which people relate to the product.”

Dhar, however, also points out that “experience designing is essentially about creating or ‘designing’ an experience — whether it is the experience of a product, a service, a process, an event or an environment. Included in its ambit is a range of other individual job titles such as interior decorator, fashion designer, or event manager”, she says. Adds Dhar, “One of the most important areas where there is a demand for experience designers is in the area of interior decoration. If you are going to decorate the interior of a shopping mall or an individual store or even someone’s home, for instance, you are basically responsible for designing an experience.”

Corroborating her theory, Layla Dey Ahmed, a Calcutta college student, observes, “I like hanging out at the new South City Mall on Prince Anwar Shah Road. But there are some shops I like going to more than others and I can’t explain why. The ambience seems to draw me and I end up buying quite a bit from this clothes store.”

“That’s the magic created by an experience designer,” Dhar explains.

But what does it take to call yourself an experience designer? Vikram Sen points out that you need to have a thorough knowledge of computer software applications like CorelDraw, Photoshop and Dreamweaver. “These, along with hordes of imagination and an aesthetic sense, are absolute prerequisites.”

Now comes the money. Take for instance, Dipak Arya, a designer working with an advertising agency. Arya had a starting salary of Rs 25,000, but he made so many contacts in his two years of experience that he “decided to go independent”. Now he makes “at least Rs 25,000 to 50,000 a month”.

Senior web designer Prahlad Sharma, however, avers that since it’s still not a well-defined stream it is not possible at this stage to make exact or even approximate calculations on the kind of money or salaries you can command as an experience designer. But, he points out, “It’s a highly technical field and specialists are valued in the job market.”

Agreeing that while your “starting salary as a designer could be anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 if not more, depending on the company you work for, with some experience there are huge hikes in salary”. He says that though there are still no “well-defined” designations as far as designers are concerned, the salary hikes are usually on a par with those in other IT-sector jobs and could be termed “lucrative”. Still, he says that at the managerial level you may draw several lakh rupees as salary and if you work independently or set up your own design business, there is nothing to stop you from “minting money”.

If you browse the Internet you may get a fair idea about the kind of specialisation required in this job. One such experience designer is Anirudh Singh. Equipped with a master of design degree (MDes) from the Industrial Design Center of the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai and a bachelor of architecture degree from the Government College of Architecture, Lucknow, UP, his site (www.coroflot.com) mentions that as an experience designer he is also an “information architect, usability expert and lead designer”. In this capacity, he writes, he has been “involved in the entire life cycle of the design process”. He adds, “Though I have taken lead roles and work well on my own, I have also worked with multidisciplinary teams to design the customer experience”.

An experience designer’s responsibilities include researching, conceptualising and designing, facilitating a visual identity, logo designing and infographics. As far as special skills are concerned, it helps to know Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver.

Sen sums up, “The job profile of an experience designer is indeed highly technical, requiring an equally high level of skill and ability, but if you’ve got it in you to make it in this field, your life could be made.”

You may click to see:->Experience Design: Who Does It, What Is It, How Do You Do It?

Sources: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)