A framework
for designing
better experiences
Helping teams see, understand and shape the experiences they deliver.
Tested with real schools
There are a myriad of ways to create experiences in the physical and digital world. AI has only accelerated that.
The challenge is no longer about what you can build. It is about building the right thing.
The most useful thing a team can do is learn to see experience clearly enough to shape it well.
Nine lenses for seeing and shaping experience.
The Experience Builder framework works across disciplines, because experience has the same underlying shape everywhere.
Seeing dimensions
Five lenses for understanding an experience
Shaping dimensions
Four lenses for designing an experience
Every card is a small, focused thinking routine.
When someone picks up a card, the quality of the conversation improves. Each one begins with a framing sentence to help bring focus, a scaffold that structures the inquiry, and three questions that help a group think more curiously about what is actually happening.
Start anywhere. Go deeper.
There is no correct starting point, no required sequence, and no single way to move through the framework. That flexibility is deliberate.
Focus on a dimension
Pick a single lens and work through its prompt cards. A group might spend a whole session in Friction, carefully mapping every source of resistance. Or in Hero, testing whether the experience works for each mode of arrival.
Follow a recipe
Five guided pathways for common situations, each one specifying which dimensions to use and in what order.
- From Friction to Flourishing
- From Zero to Hero
- From Moment to Momentum
- From Job to Do to Job Done
- From Experience to Transformation
Build an experience strategy
Work across all nine dimensions for a comprehensive view. Use the deck as a shared thinking environment over days or weeks, whether you are mapping a full journey, redesigning a service, or setting the direction for an entire organisation's experience.
There is more on the way.
The card deck is the starting point. Experience Builder is growing into a broader toolkit for teams who want to work with experience more deliberately.
Made by a small team who care deeply about helping organisations see and shape experience.
![[YELLOW CAR] logo](assets/yc-logo-light.png){kind=logo}
[YELLOW CAR] is the world's leading experience strategy training and consultancy firm for schools. In a world full of schools that all look roughly the same, [YELLOW CAR] helps schools stand out and be seen as truly different, supporting school leaders and their teams to intentionally design the experience of their school.
Dr David Willows is Co-founder and Strategic Director. Between 2005 and 2022, he was Director of Advancement at the International School of Brussels, where he grew to be widely regarded as one of the most innovative practitioners in the field, helping to shape and define the future of Advancement in schools. Recently listed as one of the world's Top 10 Global Educational Influencers, he is an author and regular keynote speaker, passionate about helping schools advance in ways that are relevant for today's educational landscape.
Suzette Parlevliet is Co-founder and Experience Director. With a background in hospitality management and nearly a decade at the International School of Brussels, Suzette has deep expertise in how people, systems, and stories shape the lived experience of a school community. She partners with school leaders and teams around the world to design and embed experience strategies that connect human insight with organisational practice. Her focus is on helping schools measure what matters, act with intention, and create environments where people and purpose thrive together.
Bolsta Education is an experience strategy and design firm serving schools globally. Rather than functioning as a traditional marketing agency, Bolsta Education operates as a strategic partner drawing on marketing, communications, management, and design disciplines to close the gap between who a school is and what families actually experience.
Jacob Shultz, Bolsta Education's founder, works with principals, business managers, marketing, communications, and admissions teams to create unified, parent-centred approaches through journey mapping, experience design workshops, brand and story strategy, and systems alignment. Experience Builder emerged from this work and from his collaboration with [YELLOW CAR], where he kept encountering the same pattern: teams that cared deeply about experience but lacked a shared framework for seeing it clearly enough to design it well.
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