Liquid Design … digital and physical interfaces are merging into one multi-media, multi-sensory experience … how could a “liquid” CX transform your market?

November 2, 2022

Walk into the new Amazon Style fashion store in Santa Monica and you are guided by your smartphone through a truly personal, interactive, realtime shopping experience – as good as an online experience, better because it is 3 dimensional, human and sensory too. You’re guided to recommendations, can quickly try on design with your avatar, and one-click buy and ship home.

Sit down at home and dream of an interior by selecting the IKEA Place app, pointing the camera at your room then imagining what could be. Augmented reality, it might be, but a few clicks and you are quickly replacing your sofa with the latest Swedish design chic, adding wallpaper and lighting, cushions and curtains. Click to order wait to arrive.

Immerse yourself in the online gaming environment of Roblex, and you can browse in Gucci Garden, an entirely virtual format of Gucci’s store and museum, where you can buy digital handbags for your avatar, but real ones too (often cheaper), and deliver next day. You could head over to Nikeland for a virtual workout, but actually with physical friends, who you connected with in the gym.

Time for some entertainment, and you could find Justin Bieber‘s next gig is in the metaverse rather than a huge stadium. IN fact Fortnite, became the place for music stars to launch new albums, and put on concerts during the pandemic. And it continued afterwards. But if you want a real event, head to London’s ABBA Voyage concert, where you can dance the night away to four avatars on stage.

Liquifying the CX

Physical and digital is an old idea. This is not a choice, physical or digital. Today, they are the same thing.

“Liquid” experiences are more than “hybrid”, more than “omni”-channel, more than “phygital” (strange word!).

They flow seamlessly in their format between physical, sensory moments and digital, intelligent moments. They are neither one nor the other, but both. They combine the best of being human, with the enabling power of data and technologies.

In reality, this has always been the case. Even the most digital experiences, still require us to engage with it, at least in a Web1 or Web2 world. But we still liked to refer to solutions as either digital or physical. Think of retail, or banking, or entertainment. We have Netflix or a movie theatre, but imagine if both were part of one enhanced experience.

A liquid state, as any student physicist will tell you, is that state in between a solid and a gas. It has properties which are similar to both – it is visible, finite, bordered (like a solid) – but takes the shape of its container, transient in time (like a gas).

A liquid experience for customers is similarly constantly flowing and flexing in its character – sometimes real, human, tactile – sometimes virtual, yet highly intelligent, and automated – and sometimes both.

“Liquidity” challenges CX designers, and their brand owners, to rethink every type of experience, how they can harness the best of all formats, to create more human and enjoyable, yet virtual and convenient, solutions.

The reality is that we are ultimately human, physical beings. And therefore this is where most holistic value can be created. Digital is the ultimate enabler. The creative challenge is to better embed digital power within essentially human experiences.

Imagine how a “liquified” approach to CX design could transform your brand, and consumer’s experience?

Examples of Liquid CX

IKEA Place … using AR to imagine new physical possibilities with a simple app.