Community Experience Design (CxD), A POV

Based on my experience in creating a Maker's Ecosystem (Xperian) in the past three years, here is my bet.

In the next couple of years, I predict a new role coming up called community experience designer (CxD). This too is experience design but of a different kind.

So far, as designers we were focusing heavily on man-machine interaction (MMI). Going forward we will start focusing on the men-men interaction as well. Cultural anthropology will be the core subject that dictates community design.

The CxD will help design better communities which will help the tribes to connect and excel in their interest areas. Online global villages will be prevalent going forward. These tribes will focus on what excites them the most.

One person will be a part of multiple tribes depending upon interest areas. In addition to specialized tribes like Ness Labs, Visualize Value etc there will also be super tribes like Maker's Guild (guild.Xperian.org) which will focus on the whole and not just parts like interests only.

The community experience designer unlike a community operations manager will help design the systems and routines of the community based on understanding the needs and wants of the members. The CxD will conduct continuous discovery and distill  insights in order to improvise the events, engagement methods, addressing needs and more.

Slowly we will also see a rise in a community design team like a product team to design and ship a global (hybrid) community and strive hard for tribe-market fitment. The CxD will work on the value proposition and fitment aspects.

Continuous shipping will be a thing in communities. Like a product, a community will also get rolled out version after version. The belonging, continuous learning and betterment will allow the tribe to explore modern networking at scale.

This is my bet. It is already happening in Maker's Guild and I will not be suprised if it happens globally with VC funding and more.

🥂 to communities!