How Physical–Digital Experiences are Designed

Abstract Innovations in immersive systems technologies allow commercial experience providers to mix both digital and physical design components in offerings such as escape rooms or city tours, creating what we call a “physical–digital experience” that cuts across both physical and virtual realms. A multiple case study of four experience-economy providers was conducted to understand how such physical–digital experiences are designed. A theoretical model explains how the deliberate and interdependent design and combination of physical and digital activities creates a new and integrated experience that features spatiotemporal and social recombination, sensory enrichment, and cross-realm anchoring, which make a physical–digital experience more than just the sum of physical and digital experiential activities alone. This research draws attention to the dual constitution of physical–digital experience and contributes to the growing scholarly discourse on the role of physicality as anchor, nexus, and lever for digital innovation.