Last week, I wrote about how feedback is essential to cultivating a great user experience. Aside from having immediate benefits, feedback is also the easiest thing you can do to start improving your products and services immediately.

At the same time you’re culling feedback, you also need to start thinking about your vision. What are you working toward? What does the broader picture look like?

Jared Spool tells us that the best experience design teams out there typically have a shared vision of what their product or service will look like five years from now (or potentially longer).

What does vision look like? Try Apple’s ‘Knowledge Navigator’ from 1987.

Knowledge Navigator illustrates a story of how we would be using computers 20 years in the future. Though this exact idea did not come to pass, you can see a few themes that bear striking resemblance to the technology of 2010.

That is a vision. When we can see and buy into the future, we are much better equipped to start building it today.

How do you create a vision?

Start by getting up from your chair. Go outside, take a walk, and start thinking.

In your head, create a character who uses your product or service. She should be fairly typical of your average user (or your target user). Dream up the ideal way for your character to engage with your product or service to achieve her own goals.

When you get back to your desk or your office, write up the outline of a story involving your character. Take her through the steps of her ideal experience. Bam! That’s a vision. Don’t worry, it is not set in stone; you can change it if you think of something better.

Share your vision

Your next move is to share this vision. Bring it to the attention of anyone who should see it. (Note: If you’re not the boss, it might be a good idea to reach a multilateral consensus on vision).

If you have the money, consider doing something like Apple and work that vision up as a video.

Work toward your vision

Start making decisions with the vision at the back of your mind. Of course, there will always be compromise between present-day needs and the future; but without a vision you would otherwise be working down a path that goes nowhere in particular.

A Japanese saying goes, “Vision without execution is a daydream. Execution without vision is a nightmare.” To find success, you need to have a vision and be able to execute it. If you’re on the right track, you’ll know it.