Defining engagement
Written by Simon Clatworthy
Colleen Jones at UX matters (link) writes a thoughtful view about the term engagement and relates it nicely to experience design. She gives a definition from the Advertising Research Foundation that in my view clouds the matter totally:
“Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.â€Â       Â
In her discussion she explains that engagement has to do with resonance and connection between the customer and the offering that ultimately drives action from the customer point of view. This, I think, is a much better working definition.  Colleen then goes on to discuss how engagement can be measured and suggests some valuable measurement criteria:1. Reach – the number of people who experience a message.2. Frequency – how often they receive a message.3. Interactivity – acknowledgment of a message in some way by the customer.4. Duration – time spent interacting with a message.  These are a valuable start, but I would like to include some experiential measure here also, regarding what they feel when interacting with the message. To me, engagement has a motivational aspect and none of the above 4 criteria relate to how the customer feels when interacting. So, I would like to add a fifth criteria, RESONANCE, which I would describe as creating a relevant emotional response during the interaction (over time). This allows us to differentiate frustrating interactions from positive ones, and also forces us to think about the design of the engagement experience during the design stage.