1. When perception is all

    I know most of you will disagree in the beginning, but follow me in my mind trip.

    Parties are sad.

    Parties are the saddest events in your life. No other event is so sad.

    Why I believe this? Because if you analyse parties from a theoretical point of view, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t.
    A party occurs when a person, of a group of people, thinks there is something to celebrate. This don’t mean they are necessarily happy, even party launchers themselves may not have anything particularily happy to celebrate. But let’s start optimistic, and let’s assume they have. For example, a graduation.

    Ehm… what’s happy in a graduation? Here is the moment you realize you won’t see your best friends so often anymore, and you’re leaving a relatively safe part and thoughtless part of your life to face the unknown. But anyway.

    In the worst case, nobody has nothing to celebrate, but they have to (New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Halloween/Italian Carnevale…)

    Invited people is not happy. Not necessarily, at least. If you weren’t happy before, a party invitation is enough to put a smile on your face, but not making you happy.

    So, a party is a moment when not necessarily happy people invite unhappy people to gather together in a place with the purpose of being happy. It sounds like inviting food overstuffed people to a dinner. They are not hungry, but they have to eat. And you are not happy, but you have to be.

    Now I am going to give you some evidence of parties not being happy.

    1. Have you ever remembered a party with the words “How happy I was”? Nope. Party stories are always about facts (John was so drunk he ate a paper towel, etc) and never about feelings;
    2. Compare the memories you have with the pictures of the party. While in your mind everybody was happy and cool, in the photos everybody looks sad and dull;
    3. Consider the typical party activities in relation to activities in the worst moments in people’s life (loss of job, divorce, depression): they are the same. Alcohol, pills, drugs, overeating.

    Is it enough? Now, the good part. I think this is a further proof of the importance of perception in experience. Party is all in your mind. Is your personal experience that makes a party joyful, and is the emotional part of the perception that makes the memory of that moment colourful, rich and worthy,despite of dull-looking photographs.

    Try it yourself, google “party” and you’ll see that looking at photos of parties you didn’t attend puts you in a deeply sad state. While when you look at your photos of past parties, your feelings are totally different. But it’s not in the photo, and it’s not in the party; it’s in your mind. Your party photos look to others exactly the same way the pictures in the Google search looked to you.

    And this is the importance of a good experience design.