Designing user experience for an actual, real-life environment (off-screen)?

Question

What do you call it when you design the user experience of an actual, real-life environment, example, an office where services are offered so that the interaction between the customers and the services they want to avail is pleasant / hassle-free.

Is it also user-experience or a sub-category of user experience?

Answer 1

I think the term you are looking for is service design, see the following definition from wiki :

Service design is a form of conceptual design that involves the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers. Service design may function as a way to inform changes to an existing service or create a new service entirely. The purpose of service design methodologies is to establish best practices for designing services according to both the needs of customers and the competencies and capabilities of service providers. If a successful method of service design is employed, the service will be user-friendly and relevant to the customers, while being sustainable and competitive for the service provider. For this purpose, service design uses methods and tools derived from different disciplines, ranging from ethnography (Segelström et al., Ylirisku and Buur, 2007, Buur, Binder et al. 2000; Buur and Soendergaard 2000) to information and management science (Morelli, 2006) to interaction design (Holmlid, 2007, Parker and Heapy, 2006).

Answer 2

There are always roles for the parties in interaction process. Define a process, roles and their properties first.

Then you will be able to figure out an answer to your question.

It could be Customer Experience (CX) (where parties are Customer and Organisation), or it could be Environmental Experience (where parties are Human and Environment), or it could be smth. else.