Revisiting the Experience Machine: A Philosophical Note on the Limits of Experience Design

This study explores the notion of experience, as used in “experience design,” based on American philosopher Robert Nozick's idea of an experience machine and Marc Hassenzahl's notion of experience design. Hassenzahl epitomizes experience as pleasure or fulfillment of needs—an idea that Nozick challenges as he claims that the world people engage with matters in a way that is not reducible to pleasure alone. Nozick's observation, I argue, indicates a sense of care in the broader concept of experience design. I explore this sense of care using John Haugeland's conception of existential commitment, which then necessitates a deepening of the notion of Hassenzahl's experience by connecting it with a sense of commitment and responsibility. This connection makes experience design, then, a concern and care for the normative powers of design.