Designing for Impact: Why Memory Is the True Currency of Experience Design
Designing for Impact: Why Memory Is the True Currency of Experience Design
The Battle for Attention in an Oversaturated World
In today’s world, people are bombarded with thousands of messages daily. Every brand, exhibition, and event competes for a fleeting moment of attention. But the real question isn’t just, “Will they notice us?”—it’s “Will they care enough to give us their time?”
Daniel Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death, recently spoke at SXSW about the changing dynamics of audience engagement and shared a thought-provoking insight at SXSW:
"You can’t buy attention anymore. The riskiest thing is spending millions of dollars to put boring stuff out there.”
This rings especially true in exhibition and experience design, where audiences have become more selective. They are no longer drawn in simply by aesthetic appeal or digital spectacle; we all crave meaningful engagement. The challenge for designers isn’t just to attract visitors, but to create something that lingers in their memory long after they leave.
The Shift from Attraction to Depth
Exhibitions and immersive experiences can no longer rely on surface-level engagement. Consumers today filter through noise at an unprecedented rate. Research shows that people scroll through the equivalent of 300 feet of content per day on their smartphones—roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty. That’s how quickly information is processed and discarded.
The real competition isn’t just against other events or experiences; it’s against the comfort of staying home. Before committing their time, people ask themselves:
Is this worth my time?
Will I learn something? Feel something? Experience something unique?
Will I remember this a year from now?
This means that depth matters more than ever. Experiences need to be designed not just to capture attention but to create lasting impressions that become memories.
The Science of Memory in Experience Design
Psychologists studying memory have long known that emotions play a crucial role in what we remember. The Peak-End Rule, coined by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, suggests that people judge an experience based on two key moments:
The most emotionally intense point (the “peak”)
The final moments (the “end”)
This means that if an exhibition can evoke strong emotions - excitement, nostalgia, wonder - it has a much higher chance of staying in someone’s mind.
One of my most valuable exhibition memories to date is Olafur Eliasson’s "The Weather Project" (2003) at Tate Modern. The installation, featuring a massive glowing sun, a mirrored ceiling, and mist-filled air, became one of the most talked-about art experiences of the decade.
I remember going to see this exhibition as a first-year student with no expectations apart from visiting a famous museum. Yet, I was completely transformed by this experience, which has stayed with me for 22 years. How amazing is that?! It created a peak moment for me—a feeling of transcendence and connectedness with the visitors present at that time and moment in space. It wasn’t just visually impressive; it made me feel something.
That’s the power of designing with memory in mind.
The Challenge: Time Constraints in Design
Ironically, as the need for depth and emotion in experiences grows, the time designers have to create them is shrinking. Tight deadlines often lead to rushed research, limited user testing, and a reliance on tried-and-tested formulas.
Yet, without investing in deep audience insights, how can we ensure that an experience will resonate? We need to shift our focus from merely making things look impressive to curating moments that trigger real emotional connections.
So we really need to think about crafting our next experience journey while investigating human psychology and memory - by studying ourselves, we can elevate how we design for others.
How to Design for Memory: Practical Approaches
1. Embrace Emotional Storytelling
Every successful exhibition tells a story. But a story alone isn’t enough—it needs to make people feel something. The best experiences tap into:
Personal nostalgia (e.g., childhood memories, shared cultural moments)
Surprise and delight (e.g., unexpected reveals, playful interactivity)
Immersion and sensory engagement (e.g., touch, sound, scent, light)
Case Study: Meow Wolf – The wildly popular immersive art collective uses storytelling, world-building, and mystery to create emotionally charged experiences that visitors actively participate in.
2. Create Interactive & Participatory Elements
Engagement skyrockets when visitors play an active role in shaping their experience. Research shows that people remember 90% of what they do compared to only 10% of what they read.
Because it made us FEEL something!!!
Example: The Museum of Ice Cream – This experience-based museum turns visitors into participants through playful, multisensory interactions.
3. Slow Down the Experience
In a world that moves at lightning speed, the most valuable experiences are the ones that encourage visitors to pause, reflect, and absorb.
Example: Van Gogh Immersive Exhibits – These exhibits blend storytelling, music, and movement to create a slowed-down, meditative atmosphere where visitors feel emotionally connected to the artwork.
4. Leverage AI for Deeper Audience Insights
While technology often accelerates production, it can also be used to slow down and refine the creative process. AI can:
Analyze past visitor behavior to predict what will resonate.
Simulate audience emotions through sentiment analysis.
Deepen time-consuming research so designers can focus on creative vision.
Rather than cutting corners, AI should be used to enhance the design process, allowing us to focus on what truly matters - human connection.
And this is exactly what my current course is learning to do. Last week was all about deep research and finding key elements to drive engagement within a specific topic. The ability to harness AI not just for efficiency, but for deeper creative exploration, is something I believe will define the next era of experience design.
👉 Interested in learning how to research with AI? Join the course waitlist here.
The Ultimate Metric of Success
The most valuable takeaway from any experience isn’t a ticket stub or a social media post. It’s the story someone tells about that experience weeks, months, or even 22 years later. If an exhibition can create a story worth retelling, it has succeeded. In conclusion, a world where attention is fleeting, memory is the real currency of experience design.
