Let’s get over ourselves.
Just this one person, just this one time. Too often that’s where User Experience design (UX) stops.
But in order to thrive, users need to transcend self and experience interconnectedness with other people, to nature, to the world outside their own skin.
Transcendent Experience design (ZX) broadens the focus of UX design from the individual, momentary needs of a user, to the warm and meaningful contexts of belonging.
“The ability to be human is rooted in our capacity for self-transcendence."
—Abraham Maslow
UX Design
UX design prioritizes one user, one moment.
up & downstream impact are hidden
critical human relationships are ignored
no support for giving back
ZX Design
ZX prioritizes our interconnectedness.
provides line-of-sight to source and impact
includes family, social, and societal networks
promotes our tendencies for gratitude, reciprocation, and justice
“Warmth is a connecting principle. Somehow the barriers come down when warmth is involved.”
– Pema Chödrön
People
We are design professionals and educators who believe in new priorities, new responsibilities, and new inspiration for the design of human experience.
Daniel Gloyd
Daniel is a designer and research expert specializing in the fields of Human-computer Interaction and User Experience design. He has helped organizations such as Toyota, Samsung, and McDonald's embrace human-centered design for over 25 years. He was founder and manager of the User Interface team at Samsung’s Los Angeles Design Lab, V.P. of Research Services at Gist Design, acquired by TrueFit Innovation in 2014. He’s the inventor on five U.S. design patents for human-computer interface innovations.
Sarah Margolis-Pineo
Sara is a writer and curator specializing in American craft and design. She’s the former curator of Hancock Shaker Village (Pittsfield, MA) where she oversaw the stewardship of the museum’s collection of 19 historic buildings and over 22,000 works of Shaker material culture. Sarah served as Luce Associate Curator of American Folk Art Museum (New York), and she has held positions in the curatorial departments of Frye Art Museum (Seattle), Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR), and Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI).
Killen Hanson
Killeen is a designer, educator, and researcher based in Brooklyn, NY. She teaches design research at Parsons School for Design in New York City and consults as a thought partner and design strategist. Her ongoing research projects and collaborations explore the power of collective reading, how objects work as vehicles for ideology and change, and the relationship between education, publication, and civic engagement. She holds degrees from Stanford University, Pacific Northwest College of Art, and Oregon College of Art and Craft.
Whether you design educational, medical, social services, or build technology-based products, come help us explore how to incorporate principles of warmth into your work in order to build stronger, healthier, and more connected individuals and communities.
The ealry American religious society known as the Shakers is also one of our nation’s first and most influential design cultures.
The ZX design principles come from years of study of their intentionally-crafted user experience. The prevailing characteristic of that experience, which can still be felt when visiting one of the surving Shaker villlages, is warmth.
Inspired by Amercian design visonaries
Key Principles of ZX
The warmth of interconnectedness.
Shaker design reminds us to honor the user’s unique potential to serve something bigger than themselves.
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Warmth is an essential principle of human connection, prioritized by the biological brain and spiritual heart alike. In order to thrive, we humans need to experience the interconnectedness between ourselves and the world around us. Yet despite the unprecedented connectivity today’s technology offers, the world is growing colder. Our daily interactions in the modern educational, commercial, and social frameworks focus on and prioritize the individual experience, and this connectivity is not the same as connection.
In all fields, user experience (UX) can be designed and warmed according to principles of interconnectedness, which support gratitude, compassion, and self-worth and can lead us toward reciprocation and justice. Drawing on Abraham Maslow’s theory of self-transcendence, Transcendent User Experience (ZX) is a fresh perspective on UX design. This critique of traditional UX design urges a shift toward a human-centered approach that connects users to the world beyond their individual needs and to the broader social impacts of their consumer behavior.
ZX Workshop May, 2025
Join us at the legendary Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA!
“Designing for Warmth: Creating Transcendent User Experiences”
Events
May 2025
“Designing for Warmth: Creating Transcendent User Experiences” Esalen, Big Sur, CA
April 2026
ZX26 - A conference on designing transcendent user experience Hancock Shaker Village, Western Mass
February 2025
Lecture on Designing Warmth for Rosenfeld Community, Rosenfeld Media, w/ Louis Rosenfeld
CalArts, May 2025
Lecture on Designing Warmth at California Institute of the Arts, San Francisco, CA. w/ Hugh Dubberly
Enfield Shaker Museum, June 2024
“The Human-Centered Design of the Shakers” Enfield Shaker Museum’s Spring Forum
Parsons School of Design, March 2024
Lecture at Prototyping Utopia Residency, Parsons School of Design, w/ Killeen Hanson
SCAD, May 2024