One can also look at industrial design: furniture, toys, housewares, tools, medical devices, and so forth. Our landscape is populated by products of varying materials, forms, colors, and textures, created for utility and pleasure. You can start in your own home: from the humble paper clip to Fiskars scissors, a hallmark of simplicity and ( extremely sharp) elegance. Then, browsing the pages of a Design Within Reach catalog (or for the more budget-conscious, IKEA or Target will do), you’ll witness a parade of beauty. From Noguchi’s landmark table, blending organic wood with glass precision in a Zen-like koan, to Herman Miller’s Aeron, now a classic of worker “geek chic” for the dot-com era, that transformed attitudes about office life. At the other end, Aston Martin and Lamborghini glamorize aggressive styling and sporty performance as an avant-garde catalyst for mainstream vehicle design.

Indeed, the recent successes of IKEA, Target, OXO, Samsung, Nike, and other firms (now mythologized to the point of cliché in the pages of Fast Company and Business Week), point to our desire for beautiful products. There is a rise of “aesthetic consciousness” among today’s consumers, who are seeking improved standards of living through quality of material and, yes, stylish design.

website, software, mobile device, or online service. What does it mean to create beauty for the digital?

First we need to understand what is meant by “experience.” Definitions (and controversies) abound beyond our scope, but for this article I approach experience as a multilayered relationship between a person and an “other,” comprising cognitive, emotional, psychological, and sensual phenomena brought into awareness via some contact [ 2]. Scientists can offer a detailed analysis of what transpires during an experience, but our focus here is the “relationship”—an engagement based upon a two-way street of interaction and communication—that shapes the overall quality of the encounter itself. It may be ephemeral, but it is still influential upon the consumer and his relation to “the other.”

So what exactly is this “other”? It could be a rich website, a desktop application, mobile device, airline kiosk, health care system, or even the culture of a company, thus spanning the range from physical to digital and beyond. It could even be the barista at your local coffee shop, serving your skim-milk latte. Each of these “others” has various facets to enable a positive or negative encounter given its context. Each has various affordances and capabilities, from buttons and icons and widgets to gestures and facial expressions bound by social norms.

This expansive range of types

ART TK

Moving Toward Experience But what about the multidimensional world of digital experience—a transient mélange of time, motion, interaction, anticipation, context, and culture, erupting from momentary contact with some digital form:

September + October 2008

 Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, an elliptical sculpture in Chicago’s Millenium Park, reflects the city’s skyline and inhabitants. Its mirror-like exterior creates a beautiful, interactive experience.