# The MARVELS framework for experience design

- **Episode:** [227](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/227.md) (2025-08-28)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** experience-design, framework, marvels
- **Time:** 31:07–35:22 (start 1867s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/227?t=1867](https://truthliesandwork.com/227?t=1867)

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[31:07] Patrick Fagan: Oh gosh. That's a good question though. That could be a whole new kind of industry. I guess I can kind of think through this out loud. I mean, one thing I'm thinking is, don't necessarily have to work in the same place every day or every week now. I mean, there's remote working. cafes, there's parks. Why not mix it up a bit? That could be one way to do it. So I did a project for an experience marketing company called We Are Collider, and they design these experiences for brands. And I found the psychological levers that make experiences more effective in marketing. And we came up with this acronym, MARVELS. So M is for magic, which is about making things emotional, surprising, and different. So any kind of magic you could sprinkle into the workday of things that basically people haven't seen before, that become the emotional peak of their day. You know, the peak-end rule, we remember the emotional peak. So if you go on holiday, you remember the jet skiing, but you don't remember the flight really as a rule, because it was very boring. So I think the problem with work is that it tends to be the flight that people don't remember. And then they maybe remember going to the pub afterwards, which is the peak of their day. So can you bring in an emotional peak, ideally a good one, to the day? The A is for adequacy, which is just about meeting basic standards, being comfortable, having amenities, which I think most workplaces do just fine, but also going above and beyond those standards with little kind of surprise and delight moments. So companies do this already, I guess, with having pizza for lunch, especially if people aren't expecting it, and especially if it's a pizza from a nice pizza place. For instance, just those surprise and delight moments help a lot. The R is for relevance. I guess that could be figuring out what your employees care about and bringing more of that into the workplace rather than just being this functional thing where employers often are just kind of extracting, taking what they want from the employees, you know, not to generalize too much, but could it go the other way a little bit and finding out what employees want and giving it to them and being relevant. It doesn't necessarily have to cost anything, but people have hobbies and interests, don't they?
[33:23] Al Elliott: Yeah
[33:24] Patrick Fagan: V is for value, which is about getting something out of the experience, which again can be freebies. People like gifts and things, but it can also be information, learning, curiosity. So any kind of anything new or interesting that you can bring into the workplace would be good. E is for exchange, which is about interactivity. So, can you have an element of physicality about the workplace of interacting with things? Typically, Google might have a slide in the workplace. I mean, maybe that's a bit of a trite example, but just things that people can physically interact with and not just be passive. L is for labeling, which is about branding. Don't think that really applies here, but I suppose The takeaway is what kind of sensory flashbulb impression are you leaving of the workplace? Is it somewhere with office chairs and halogen lights and plastic tables? That's probably not great versus if it's somewhere more kind of comfortable and nice to be. And then the final one, the S is for social, which I think we've talked about a lot. Can you foster those social connections between people?
[34:34] Leanne Elliott: I love that, and I'm sorry for putting you on the spot, Pat, but that was brilliant. And I can see, I can see entrepreneurs loving that as well. Like you say, there's just so many little ways that they can add that little bit of magic or improve the relevance. And I think particularly around, um, as you say, this whole conversation about people bringing their whole selves to work, which can sound a bit fluffy and a bit meh, but if you're talking about in a way of, well, what are they interested in? What are their hobbies? What are is valuable to them and bringing that into that environment will be really powerful
[35:05] Patrick Fagan: Yeah, absolutely. Especially with AI as it is, there's certain, you know, there's PII and data privacy and stuff, but I'm sure there's data that you can get on your employees and feed it into an LLM and it'll give you really good, creative, relevant recommendations for things that they'd like