Why Member Intentions Matter for Creating Community Experiences
While working with communities, I found myself drawn to understanding how experiences and spaces are designed to better serve customers, visitors, and employees. I wanted to bring that understanding into my work, particularly to enhance the member experience on the Factory Berlin campus back in the days.
In my research, I came across the Gensler Experience Index, a framework that "identifies the key drivers of a great experience, quantifies the direct impact great design has on experience, and provides a holistic framework for understanding experience."
The framework combines four core elements: intention, expectation, interaction, and space.
At the heart of this framework is intention—the reason why someone is engaging in the experience. Surrounding this core are the factors that shape perception: expectations, the quality of interactions, and spatial attributes.
All of these elements shape a great experience, but what caught my attention were experience intentions—basically, why people show up and what they’re hoping to get out of it.
Source: Experience Index by Gensler Research Institute (https://www.gensler.com/gri/experience-index)
Intention: The Five Experience Modes
The Gensler research defines five distinct modes:
Task Mode: Focusing on completing a specific goal or task.
Social Mode: Engaging with others, often combined with other modes.
Discovery Mode: Exploring without a fixed plan, often filling gaps between other activities.
Entertainment Mode: Seeking enjoyment or distraction.
Aspiration Mode: Experiences that enable growth, inspiration, or connection to a larger purpose.
Each mode has its design implications, from minimizing distractions to encouraging social interactions or creating memorable, inspiring moments.
What’s interesting is that spaces don’t need to cater to just one mode. In fact, multi-modal spaces often provide richer and more engaging experiences.
Take, for example, a shopping mall. In a thoughtfully designed mall, you can:
Buy groceries.
Catch up with a friend over lunch.
Wander around, maybe stumble upon an art exhibit or pop-up event.
Watch a movie.
End the day with a sports session on the rooftop.
This kind of diversity in experience could make the mall a favorite destination compared to a smaller one with limited options, as layering of experiences makes a space dynamic, catering to diverse needs and intentions.
Reflecting on Factory Berlin
Learning about these modes got me thinking about the member experience at Factory Berlin (co-working / innovation hub), and here’s how the modes showed up in that context:
Task Mode: Members focused on getting things done—taking calls in a phone booth, hosting a meeting in a meeting room, or quietly working on a project in the co-working space.
Social Mode: Engaging with other members—grabbing coffee or lunch on campus, connecting through the network, or joining a networking brunch or after-work drinks.
Discovery Mode: Wandering without a concrete plan—checking out what others are working on, chatting in the hallway, or spontaneously advising a fellow member on their project.
Entertainment Mode: Taking a break to have fun—playing table tennis, diving into the ball pit, or watching a movie in the cinema.
Aspiration Mode: Looking for growth and inspiration—starting a community initiative, organizing an event, attending a workshop, or hearing an inspiring founder speak.
Factory Berlin did a great job of covering all the Gensler modes through its mix of well-designed spaces and community programming. The campus had plenty of inspiring and sometimes quirky corners that helped bring the community to life. I even found the Gensler modes a helpful way to explain member experiences in documents like pitch decks—it simply made a lot of sense.
While I didn’t design the campuses themselves—this was either external work done prior to my arrival or a collaborative team effort—I focused on improving the member experience within these spaces. Using the Gensler framework, I worked to enhance experiences, particularly in underused areas that needed a bit of redesign to better align with members’ needs and intentions.
Of course, it was always a work in progress. Member feedback and ideas often shaped the space and programming, keeping them relevant and aligned with what people needed, all while considering members’ intentions and the Gensler modes.
What about online communities?
With online communities and remote work, translating these modes to a digital context can be a challenge, as space itself plays a significant role in shaping experiences. Still, even online, we can put on a Gensler hat and think about:
Improving task-driven actions, like knowledge sharing or project management.
Encouraging social connections through casual online chats or events.
Creating discovery experiences, such as hiding cool information or sparking spontaneous interactions.
Introducing elements of entertainment, like gamification.
Offering aspiration-driven opportunities through educational content, leadership programs, or cause-driven initiatives.
Of course, not every aspect can be perfectly translated into the online world. However, thinking about intentions gave me a fresh perspective and helped me approach online experiences from a new angle.
It’s been years since I first discovered the Gensler Experience Index, yet I keep coming back to it. Whether working with a co-working campus or an online platform, the goal remains the same: creating experiences that resonate with diverse user needs and intentions while fostering connection, purpose, and belonging.
If you’re interested in designing better experiences, Gensler’s ongoing work is full of valuable insights and is definitely worth exploring.
Website: https://www.gensler.com/
