Constraints and Creative Experiences with Jaci Badzin

Experience by Design

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being an experience designer, or a designer of any kind, is the opportunity to make unexpected connections in order to deliver new experiences. Often this starts in our backgrounds of study. Because there are so few programs targeted in experience design, the majority of designers combine their educational background in different ways, practicing a strange type of professional alchemy that results in creativity and innovation.

And if you talk to an experience designer, which we do a lot here at Experience by Design, you often get the same kind of response, “I don’t know how I got here, but I'm sure glad that I did!” One of the best thing about doing the podcast is the opportunity to explore those diverse backgrounds and journeys, tracing the circuitous routes that many of us take to get here. While it will be a good thing to at some point have experience design programs that train experience design professionals, it will be unfortunate if we lose the spirit that comes from the diverse journeys.

Today on Experience by Design, we are glad to have consultant and experience designer Jaci Badzin. Jaci brings with herself a range of personal and professional experiences that she combines to make memorable experiences. We talk about her affinity for backgammon, her training as a dancer, her knowledge of gymnastics, her working with some of the biggest brands around, and her work running her own experience design company.

We also talk about how constraints are the possibility for creativity. When you don’t have the budget, you can see what you do have. When you don’t have the space, you can see how to best use the space you have. When you don’t have the staff, focus on the skills of the people you do have. Her role is to bring the parts together in unique ways, and be the conductor of the experience orchestra.

Jaci also thinks she has some idea on how to make academic conferences less boring, which would be her greatest achievement of all!