Digital Experience Design
Designing the whole digital journey rather than individual screens: the transitions between site, app, email and support, where most of the friction actually lives.
Overview
Individual touchpoints are often well designed and the experience is still bad, because nobody owns the joins. The website is one team, the app another, the emails a third, and support a fourth. The customer experiences the joins, and the joins are where things break.
This is design at the level above the screen: what state carries between contexts, whether a person has to repeat themselves, and whether the tone changes when they move from marketing to support. It usually requires organisational change as well as design, and saying so early is part of the work.
Who this is for
- Companies whose digital touchpoints are each owned by a different team
- Businesses where customers repeat information at every step
- Organisations whose app and website behave like different companies
How we approach digital experience design
The specific pieces of work a typical engagement covers. Scope is agreed up front — nothing here is a surprise line item later.
Journey mapping across channels
The full sequence including email, support and offline steps, not just the screens your team controls.
Transition design
What happens between contexts: what state carries over, what has to be re-entered, and what should be remembered.
Consistency principles
Shared patterns and language across touchpoints, so moving between them does not feel like changing companies.
Service blueprint
What has to happen behind the scenes for the experience to work, including the internal steps nobody designed.
Prioritised improvements
Ranked by impact against effort, with an owner per item, since most of these changes cross team boundaries.
Governance
Who owns the experience across teams, which is usually the real blocker and usually nobody.
From first call to measured result
The same sequence every time, so you always know what happens next.
Map
Follow real journeys across every channel, including the phone calls and emails that never appear in analytics.
Find the joins
Identify where the experience breaks between contexts, which is rarely where individual teams are looking.
Design
Design the transitions and the shared patterns, with the internal changes each requires made explicit.
Sequence
A prioritised plan with owners, sequenced so early wins build support for the harder organisational changes.
Outcomes, not deliverables
A pile of artefacts isn't progress. These are the changes the work is meant to produce — and what we report against.
Friction where nobody was looking
The joins between well-designed touchpoints are consistently where the worst experience lives.
One company, not four
Shared patterns and tone make the organisation feel coherent to the person using it.
Less repetition for customers
Carrying state between contexts removes the most common and most irritating complaint.
An owner for the whole
Naming who owns the experience across teams is often the change that makes everything else possible.
Common questions about Digital Experience Design
The things people ask before they get in touch. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
How is this different from customer journey mapping?
Journey mapping in our strategy category diagnoses where customers are lost and produces a prioritised fix list. This is the design work that follows: actually designing the transitions and patterns. Many clients do the mapping first and this second.
Do we need to reorganise to fix this?
Sometimes, and we will say so rather than designing around a structural problem. Where four teams own four touchpoints and nobody owns the joins, no amount of design will hold unless somebody is made accountable for the whole.
Where do we start if the budget is limited?
With the single transition carrying the most volume, usually the handover from marketing to product or from product to support. Fixing one join well demonstrates the value and funds the rest.
How long does this take?
Eight to twelve weeks for the mapping and design across a few channels. Implementation is longer because it crosses teams, which is why the sequencing matters.
Thinking about Digital Experience Design?
Tell us what you are trying to change. If we are not the right fit we will say so, and point you somewhere better.
Looking at the wider picture?
Digital Experience Design usually sits alongside other work in Branding & Experience Design. Browse the full area to see what it connects to.