Ends.: Why we overlook endings for humans, products, services and digital. And why we shouldn’t.

I discovered Joe Macleod as part of my self-study this year in the field of UX/CX (user experience and customer experience), and am convinced that he's on to something big with his proposal/plea for conscientiously designed “closure experiences.” It’s a simple but powerful idea: Nothing lasts forever. We don’t design graceful endings into our products, services, and systems, but we should.This should be required reading for all product managers and anyone with “experience” in their title. The concept of closure experiences is one that seems obvious in retrospect and is certain to be baked into the collective thinking about UX/CX best practices. Once you see the pattern, you start to see examples of end-less design everywhere.It isn't a how-to book about designing closure experiences but introduces the concept into our design vocabulary. I'm a product manager/solution designer, and designing closure experiences is still very much my burden, but a burden that this time last year I didn't even know I had...

The typography in this book makes it difficult to read. It’s a thin font and I have been struggling to read the text. I haven’t had this problem before. I may suggest waiting for an ebook version if you use glasses to read.

Having spent a career in the design and digital space, I consider this book to be an essential read. All too often we create experiences with little consideration for the (inevitable) end of the user journey. The author highlights the key considerations for us to design with as much passion for Ends as we do with beginnings. Such an important theme in our 'throw away' digital culture.

Fascinating - and deeply frustrating. Joe Macleod thinks we don't think about endings enough. And indeed, he is right that we spend much more time on 'onboarding' than 'offboarding'.How that simple, and correct observation, could sprawl into a sort of 'grand unified theory' running to 242 pages is a mystery. The author asserts that the lack of good endings is leading us to an unsavoury end (if you will forgive the pun). Macleod covers money, marriage, computer games, TV-series, travel - in fact any area you can imagine. He has something to say about all, and has quotes, facts and figures from a litany of sources. The focus is on what's wrong, what's lacking.One of the author's suggestions is that you should be able to offset carbon as you book a flight - another that we'd all be happier if the series Friends had had a better ending after 200 episodes. And so it goes on.That said, he does give a nod to 'the right to be forgotten'; the circular economy; the practice of recycling. As interesting as that is (and I learnt many a new factoid) it is a bit of a dog's breakfast - leaving you without a satisfactory finish: what exactly is a good end?Starting with a clear idea of that - and an experienced editor - might have helped us all get to closure.

I saw Joe speak at an event several months ago and his discussion on endings - and how bad we are at them - really struck a chord. I've thought about this for a while from a recruiting point of view - ie we tend set out to recruit someone for an undefined period rather than thinking about things like 'this a 3 year role for the person. Let's frame it in that way so they develop for the next thing AND let's build the succession planning in from the beginning'.Ends speaks more to our level of consumerism - the relentless focus on getting 'new' customers and the on-boarding experience - and points to how we've distanced ourselves from thinking about a) the ending and b) the consequences of our 'blissful ignorance' and lack of ownership about what impact we are actually having.While a little clunky and un-directed at times, in a world where 'shiny pennies', 'next generation' and the 'latest and greatest' are championed, Ends offers a thought-provoking perspective on where all of this endless moving on might actually end up. 4-stars

Ends is a thinking persons design guide. I've been dipping in and out of it since it got published and all credit to Joe for writing something nobody else has written. That's what makes it great -- it's a unique perspective on something we all take for granted when we're pushing stuff out on the internet and into everyone pockets. We often start something with the best intentions, but fail to close them with the same purpose. Joe gives us a clean set of practical approaches to design the end of relationships with the people consuming what we put out there. Get it and stick it on the shelf under 'T' for Thought-provoking.

Joe Macleod's Ends is a rare thing: a book which causes one to question preconceived notions across an array of life's most important subjects.He raises insightful points about the unsustainable way most companies approach the design of product and services. However, it was particularly Joe's thorough and thoughtful research into the historical and cultural origins of these attitudes which made the book especially illuminating for me.It is no exaggeration to say the book has the potential to leave readers asking themselves profound questions about their own attitudes to endings, including death itself.It takes creativity, guts and persistence to write a book like this, which not only enriches readers' knowledge but encourages them to explore whole new categories of questions they may not have previously considered.

Ends is the book that made me wait. I waited for it to be written and I waited to review it until I'd had a chance to let it fully sink in. As a designer, and a researcher on the topics of death and digital legacy, I find the author's perspective absolutely crucial to advancing the practice of design. In a clear manner, Joe outlines practical guidelines to respectfully and intelligently handle the end of relationships with our users, while providing the context necessary to understanding the reasons why ends matter just as much as beginnings do.Ends should be on every experience designer must-read list.