Designing for Awe & Wonder: Design Deep Dive

Most experience designers spend their energy on what happens in the field. This program is about how to design experiences worth returning to, again and again, because they were built to move people.

Grounded in Dr. Dacher Keltner's research on the eight sources of awe, this five-week hybrid program gives you the frameworks, tools, and design practice to create guest experiences that shift perception, deepen engagement, and stay with people long after they've returned home. Awe is not a mood. It is a design objective with measurable outcomes: guests in awe states perceive experiences as longer and higher in value, spend more freely, and become advocates for the places and people that moved them.

This is a Level 400 Deep Dive built for experienced practitioners across all five sectors: destinations, hospitality properties, tour operators, experience designers, guides, and facilitators. A sector-specific application runs throughout every framework, exercise, and design tool.

Modules

Module 1: The Science of Awe(Week 1, Sept 14-20) Keltner's eight sources of awe: moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual design, spirituality, life and death, and epiphany. The neuroscience of wonder and what happens in the brain and body during encounters with vastness. Working exercise: audit your current offerings for awe moments, identifying where elevation already exists and where it is left to chance.

Module 2: Ethical Elevation Design(Week 2, Sept 21-27) The difference between invitation and manipulation in awe design. Designing for vulnerability and openness without exploiting it. The role of ceremony, ritual, and collective effervescence. Cultural sensitivity across contexts. Working exercise: design three awe moments for your offering drawing from nature, human connection, and contrast. Peer feedback on ethical boundaries.

Module 3: Applied Design Techniques(Week 3, Sept 28-Oct 4) Integrating surprise, mystery, and white-space into itineraries and experiences. Moments of elevation, connection, and contrast as design elements within the broader PATH framework. The rhythm of intensity and rest that allows wonder to land. Working exercise: map a complete experience arc with awe touchpoints using TTC's itinerary checklist.

Peer Review Week(Week 4, Oct 5-11): Independent peer review of your Design Guide draft. Each participant reviews two peers' guides and provides written feedback on design quality, ethical considerations, and practical feasibility.

Module 4: Final Presentations(Week 5, Oct 12-16) Present your completed Awe & Wonder Design Guide. Faculty and peer feedback. Refinement discussion. Closing integration: how you carry this work into your next season.

Day 30 Integration Gathering: A 30-day touchpoint after the program closes. What did you implement? What changed in your perception? Where are you seeing awe differently now? Re-entry is part of the practice.

What you'll build:

• An Awe Audit of one current offering

• Three awe moments designed for your specific context, drawn from Keltner's eight sources

• A complete experience arc with awe touchpoints mapped using the PATH Framework and 5C Criteria

• A complete Awe & Wonder Design Guide with faculty and peer feedback on design quality, ethics, and feasibility.

Price: $1,450 Non-Members | $1087.50 Members

EARLY BIRD PRICING until June 30th, 2026:

$1,232.50 Non-Members (Use code AWEWONDER15) | $870 Members Only (Use Code AWEWONDER40)

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Designing for Awe & Wonder: Design Deep Dive

$1,450.00

Research by Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley demonstrates that awe reduces inflammation markers, increases generosity, expands time perception, and fosters connection to something greater than the self. Guests in awe-states spend more freely, perceive experiences as longer, and attribute greater value to their journey. Awe is a design objective with measurable outcomes.

Over five weeks, explore the eight sources of awe, the neuroscience of wonder, and how to design moments of elevation that dissolve boundaries between self and world. You will build a complete Awe & Wonder Design Guide for your specific context, peer-reviewed and refined through the cohort. Facilitated by Jake Haupert.

Enroll In Deep Dive