The ills of consumption have a common source - endings. We design rich, emotional and meaningful experiences to onboard​ the consumer to a product or service. But, in contrast, the off-boarding of a consumer experience is barren of emotion and meaning. Researching this theme over the last few years revealed a far more profound story. Its origins deep in hundreds of years of social history, with closer ties to religion and death than to business. This presentation takes the audience through a remarkable story of why consumer endings have been distanced in the customer lifecycle. And why they are now vital to modern business.

Consumers experience rich, emotional on-boarding to products, while enduring barren, meaningless off-boarding. This imbalance surfaces across business sectors and limits improving consumerism. A future differentiator for any business is going to be the end it provides it’s customers. So what will ends look like for different product sectors? Building on the work from my last Ends book, this presentation focuses on sector needs. Highlighting a range of ends across the finance, health, tech and retail sectors. Revealing how it’s done well (and badly), and what to do when applying it to your designs.

Joe Macleod on why we overlook endings for humans, products, services and digital. And why we shouldn't. Joe Macleod at CreativeMornings Gothenburg, November 2017. Free events like this one are hosted every month in dozens of cities. Discover hundreds of talks from the world's creative community at https://creativemornings.com/talks Don't miss a video.

Services, products and experiences don't last forever, yet we rarely design endings. Many of us are active in the creation of services, products or digital products; making them attractive, engaging and usable for consumers, but we often overlook concluding these experiences for the user in a responsible way.

Most experiences in life are punctuated by a closure experience. In the past these were profound; however, over generations we have distanced ourselves from meaningful closure experiences thanks to our lifestyles increasing in comfort, the church weakening and medicine advancing. This has seemingly freed us from the shackles of the ultimate closure experience - death - and sanctioning our personal pursuit of heaven on earth in the form of consumption. We are now encouraged to drunkenly stumble from purchase to purchase, with any sense of longevity and responsibility removed. Long term side effects of this are exampled in the Product, Service and Digital landscapes that we frequent. The consequences of our behaviour results in a changing climate, industries fined billions for mis-selling and individuals casually eroding their personal online reputations. As designers we are active in the creation of services, products and digital products; making them attractive, engaging and usable for consumers, but we often overlook concluding these experiences for the user in a responsible way. Closure Experiences offers a model to frame this change. http://interaction16.ixda.org/session/closure-experiences-why-a-simple-goodbye-could-help-climate-change/

Speaking at Brighton University about Closure Experiences. Audio + Slides. Talking about changes in the customer life cycle and how to design better Closure Experiences.

Ends. Why they are critical to improving consumption. How many services have you started, designed, launched and built a customer base for? Do you have the same passion for ending them appropriately? Does it matter? Most experiences in life are punctuated by a closure experience - an ending.

Joe Macleod - consultant, speaker, and author of "Ends" at DigitalK conference 2018. Since 2011 DigitalK has become one of the most influential digital technology events in Southeast Europe. Hosted in Sofia, Bulgaria, the conference lineup consists of global business leaders, founders, investors and digital marketing professionals from the wold's leading companies.

Challenging the very notion of, "what if we could redesign everything?" What if we just finished what we started? Ended what we begin? The consumer lifecycle is emotionally bias. At one end we're encouraged to engage, buy, share, commit. At the other a void of emotion sacrifices consumer action, holding back engagement, limiting reflection and responsibility.