How Specificity in Experience Design Builds Connection

In life, in work, in entertainment, people report an increased sense of fulfillment when they feel like they’re part of something bigger.

As our loneliness epidemic becomes increasingly untenable, how can experience designers answer the call, from both owners/operators and from humanity, to bring people together and invite a sense of community and meaning?

This talk looks at the ways design can share a powerful, immediate, and relevant bigger story, while giving people multiple ways to see themselves and their own experiences reflected in it, through a simple three-part framework:

• Seeing yourself
• Seeing the bigger story
• Seeing them together

We’ll trace that framework across four case studies, running from the smallest budget to the largest: a hand-folded DIY zine, the Guinness Storehouse’s “Stoutie” (your face, printed onto a pint of beer), the National Memorial for Peace and Justice’s county-coffin monuments, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, still growing after nearly 40 years.

Different scales, different budgets, same mechanism: each is expansive enough to hold personal engagement without it becoming extractive (you just gave up your data), exploitative (you just became an ad campaign), or exhibitionist (you just became very, very visible).

We’ll look at concrete, borrowed mechanics that build “on-ramps”: safe, optional entry points that invite guests to engage at their chosen level, without forcing participation.

We’ll even include the research that backs all this up to defend those design choices to a skeptical stakeholder or client, and the well-documented effects of individualizing stories that otherwise feel abstract or too overwhelming to truly land.

This Experience Briefing for anyone designing experiences on any budget, who wants to invite audiences into a meaningful sense of belonging.

Key takeaways:

• One framework, any budget: there are as many ways to share someone’s personal experience as there are experiences themselves. The trick is finding the right container.

• Belonging isn’t guaranteed, but it can get a boost from design: making engagement feel safer by designing for participation with dignity.

• “In the particular is contained the universal”: people connect with other people, not abstract concepts or causes.

Who should attend:

This Experience Briefing for anyone designing experiences in museums, brands, or community spaces, on any budget, who wants to invite, not exploit, audiences into a meaningful sense of belonging.

About Lacy K Campbell (Creative Director, Bough House Creative Workshop):

Lacy K. Campbell designs environments and installations that help people see themselves and each other as part of a bigger story.

Her career stretches from MacArthur-funded outdoor spectacle and site-specific theater to international museums and location-based entertainment, with credits spanning a Tony Award-winning season, Thea Award-winning projects, and work recognized with major arts fellowships and grants.

Also, she isn’t a doctor, but she has played one on TV.

Named a 2025 Blooloop 50 Museum Influencer, Lacy brings 20 years of performance and story-driven design to the WXO community.

How to watch this Experience Briefing:

• Experience Briefings are available for WXO members only
• To join the WXO, please head to our Application page
• The WXO is a global home for the leaders, shapers and doers in the Experience Economy
• As a member, you’ll get live access to Experience Briefings like this one plus unlock an on demand library of over 100 recordings

Timings:

Session #2 is suitable for those in the US or Europe, but everyone is welcome! Here’s when we kick off in your time zone:

• London: 17:55 – 19:00
• Paris: 18:55 – 20:00
• Los Angeles: 09:55 – 11:00
• Santa Fe: 10:55 – 12:00
• Chicago: 11:55 – 13:00
• New York: 12:55 – 14:00
• São Paulo, Santiago & Buenos Aires: 13:55 – 15:00