Corporate players are still just pumping more of the same old transactional water through the aquarium until the fish die.
– Remind me again, what goals do we have for designing self-driving cars? Photo: Elliott Erwitt
Perhaps all living things in their endeavors innately seek some form of growth. But traditional business metrics have run dry, and faced with the glaring un-sustainability of continued linear growth that commercial models demand, the largest of corporate players are still just pumping more of the same old transactional water through the aquarium until the fish die. Liminality offers a bolder perspective on growth: depth and complexity as a new species of value creation. One that is, by its very definition, much more interesting.
Today, the transactional nature of large businesses define and drive our measurement of growth. More revenue, more volume, more profits or more customers etc. It is the scalable efficiency of user interactions that fuel the corporate machine. This assumes predictability, ubiquity and uniformity: the opposite of what we need to feel alive. And the opposite of liminality.
A liminal framework would instead — akin to the work of an artist — look at the ordinary to find the sublime: to seize the opportunity of the transaction to find something meaningful, and in doing so, fundamentally change the nature of the commercial relationship. This would create a safe liminal space in-between the product and the user where they are free to explore without practical day-to-day consequences. In this sense, these are fictional spaces, beckoning us to explore not just what is (transactional), but what might be (liminal). But, we only invest time and attention in such explorations when they promise something existentially meaningful.
From transaction to experience
The liminalist would ask: what explorations in a particular commercial context could promise something truly meaningful that we cannot have in the ordinary — yet also reward someone with new and surprising real world insights? It’s a familiar dilemma and paradox: Aristotle suggested (Poetics, sec. 1452a) that all great stories need to be both inevitable and surprising, at the same time. Liminality is born out of these paradoxes, forcing us to look at the old in new ways.
The new value building asset on the liminal balance sheet is the continual promise of deep and meaningful surprise; the opposite of predictable transactions. And because all meaningful experiences need to be both relevant and surprising, at the same time — what better place to start than the inevitability of every-day transactions.
No, not all transactions need to be deep experiences. But more of them absolutely do — and most can be if we approach the problem right. Liminal design is an additional path to growth as it deepens and enriches the relationship with the user (more on that below). And yes, sustainability is an important and crucial effort, so much in fact that our very existence depends on it. But as most sustainability work focuses on reducing the impact of the current consumption pattern and status quo: it’s work for brilliant engineers, not for poets and visionaries. Liminality requires disruption and novelty.
This is not a branding exercise
But it is worth noting that liminal design is never a detached experience from the transactional product: without this paradox (both inevitable and surprising!) it would be a stand-alone, cheap, on-demand Disneyland thrill and lack the grounded power to deliver deeper experiences. Liminal Design is always born out of the day-to-day inevitability of reality and its creative ability to suggest a new perspective that elevates the transaction to meaningful experience.
This is not a branding exercise, nor a well-meaning experiment — or big oil funding a show at Tate Modern. The liminal experience demands to be woven into the very fabric of the actual product. To do this, we have to dig deep for meaning and purpose in the existing business and design user experiences that reach well beyond the predictable: this is liminal design.
From consumption to deeper dialogue
The move from transactional to liminal also fundamentally changes the relationship with users from consumption to a transformative dialogue and interplay. Since deep and meaningful surprise cannot be mechanically repeated — all living things stop responding to repetition — it’s the dynamic and evolving nature of the interaction that carries long term value. How does the user evolve with use? And how does the product evolve with use?
Many product experiences adapt to our personal use, both physical and digital. Whether this change is meaningful from a liminal perspective depends on how the change fits our narrative. Good hiking boots don’t “fail” by looking less new, they succeed by being broken in and showing signs of exploration. A digital experience might use your history to curate more interesting questions based on earlier explorations. And a place of worship, perhaps not changing at all for decades, might promise such a large narrative hinting at the sublime that visits instead force focus on the questions that we bring and how change can happen in us.
One experience and insight should always lead to the promise of a more interesting one to come next. We earn this, it is not simply supplied. And by their very nature, deep insights are personal. The more interesting the interaction with the product, the more valuable it will be as an asset. And the more interesting the user, the more interesting the dialogue — and consequently, the value that the product promises. It is not more of the same that drives liminal growth, it is the ability to create meaningful depth and novel surprise.
Good questions trump correct answers
We should ask how searching with Google can yield more than simple answers or “search suggestions”, rather, how might an inquiry lead to new bold explorations and new and more interesting questions around the same topic? How might Amazon, in its delivery of boxes, conjure the same anticipation we felt as children waiting for a toy we had been saving up for over the summer — and in doing so shift the focus away from instant gratification that can only be satiated by more, faster? Or, how might Zoom turn video conferencing from an unfocused clutter of corporate isolation to a tool for deep, focused and meaningful conversations that bring social connection and a reduction in business travel? For liminal design, the great question always trumps the correct answer. And how fitting here, to focus on surprise where transactions reign.
A design process for liminal experiences with many concrete examples is discussed in earlier articles of this liminal article series — with enthusiastic detail. The above example of Zoom is covered in “Liminality and Remote Presence.” “Liminal Design and the Corporate Sublime” looks at finding the profound in ordinary products, and the peculiar opportunities afforded AI are discussed in “On AI as fiction.” And for an overview on liminality, “How to Kiss a Cannibal” and the academic paper Liminal Design, a three step approach… (Liedgren, et al 2023) provide both theoretical frameworks and tools for product development and designers.
The suggestion here is that a liminal approach to growth and product design will envision new ways to create value that shifts the linear growth trajectory towards a cycle that contributes to and benefits from dynamic depth and complexity. If the necessary existential questions seem too far removed from the tasks of business, perhaps it helps to see a liminal economy as a surprising inevitability in the evolution from commodities to goods, and then further from goods to services — and then the “Welcome to the Experience economy” (Pine and Gilmore, 1998) that led to the now established transformational economy. Liminality is up next and applies more broadly. If anything is holding it back it’s not the lack of answers, but our ability to envision more interesting questions.
Johan Liedgren
Founder of the international think tank The Liminal Circle. Award-winning film-director, writer and consultant working with media and technology companies on liminal design strategy, narrative and product development. https://www.liminalcircle.com / http://www.liedgren.com
Welcome to the Liminal Economy: from more volume to more interesting was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
