Most digital design work and design methods are built to serve humans. As AI transforms the way organisations interact with people, that approach is quietly shifting — and the designers and product teams who recognise it will define and lead what comes next.

Somewhere right now, an AI agent is placing an order on behalf of a user who never touched the screen. Another is reading and interpreting a product’s interface and building a recommendation. And a third, embedded inside an enterprise copilot, is routing a customer query to find a resolution. All through a journey that’s been designed… for humans.

But none of them clicked anything. None of them read your micro-copy. None of them got confused and checked a tooltip.

Yet the order was placed, recommendation made and query routed and resolved.

The question most product and design teams must ask is: what does it mean to design for the non-Human experience?

The shift nobody (fully) planned for

We have been building digital products for humans for thirty years. We now need to design for systems that act on humans’ behalf — and that requires a different frame.

Agentic AI is not arriving as a single, announced moment. It is instead, seeping in. It entered through productivity tools that could schedule meetings. Then through browser extensions that could fill forms. Then through voice assistants that could complete purchases (only in some regions, to date). Now it sits inside enterprise software, consumer apps, and developer tools carrying out multi-step tasks that were, until very recently, the exclusive role of a human being with years of training and some degree of patience.

The scale of this shift is easy to underestimate. By the end of 2026, Gartner estimates that agentic AI will handle a meaningful share of enterprise workflows without human initiation. And where every one of these workflows requires a digital interface, most are designed with only one type of user in mind. A human.

For Product Design teams, the gap between who we have always designed for (Humans) and a new “user” of products we design (Machine), is widening faster than most are moving.

Considered Design gives us a head start

Before redesigning everything, it helps to understand how AI agents navigate interfaces today, because there is still a significant gap between the hype and the reality. And that gap has direct design implications.

Agentic tools typically combine three things: First, the ability to interpret intent, often through multi-modal interfaces. Second, the ability to reason or think through problems independently. And third, the ability to take actions on your behalf by integrating with your existing apps and data (with human guidance).

Current agents are very capable when taking on structured, well-labelled, consistent interfaces. They struggle (and fail) in the same places that have always challenged designers: ambiguous error states, inconsistent labelling, interfaces that rely on contextual visual cues to convey meaning, flows that assume a particular kind of spatial understanding or reasoning.

In a recent project for a travel company, we created a set of standards to set up and deliver great content and customer experience in this future. Through our research, we uncovered areas where agents expose weaknesses — the same that accessibility audits have flagged for years. Areas that had been rigorously designed for inclusive, accessible experiences performed best.

Put in other words, the best practices of accessible, inclusive design are also, it turns out, the best practices of agent-readable design. Clear labels, logical flow, consistent patterns, explicit UI states, meaningful alt text and semantic HTML. If your product fails a screen-reader audit, there is a reasonable chance it will fail an AI agent interaction, too.

Agents expose the same weaknesses that accessibility audits have flagged for years. The product teams most prepared for agentic UX are, perhaps counterintuitively, those who already design rigorously for inclusive, accessible experiences.

But agents also add another dimension: failure modes that have no human parallel. A human who encounters an unclear confirmation screen will hesitate, re-read, perhaps ask a colleague. It’s one of our relatable human imperfections. An agent, however, will make a probabilistic decision and proceed. At scale, this means a poorly designed confirmation step — one that a human would navigate with reasonable success — becomes a source of systematic errors when an agent is driving.

The birth of Machine Experience Design

Machine Experience (MX) design — a term gaining traction in the industry — refers specifically to designing interfaces and interactions that serve machine actors as effectively as human ones. It is not a replacement for UX. It is an additional craft layer that covers dual intent.

Machine Experience design offers different questions. Instead of ‘how does the user understand this?’, it asks: ‘how does a system analyse this?’ Instead of ‘does this feel intuitive?’, it asks: ‘is this state unambiguous and clear?’ Instead of ‘does this delight the user?’, it asks: ‘is this outcome verifiable?’

The practical implications of MX design are significant to how we think as designers, integrating a more holistic understanding of the systems at play:

• Data driven UI: communicating to humans and machines through a consistent, structured data layer (layout, content, and behaviors) as determined by a dynamic backend
• Explicit states: every meaningful state in a user journey must be clearly communicated (i.e. error, success, empty states), not just visually implied in the UI
• Graceful agent failures: designing for what happens when the agent gets it wrong, including surfaces for human review and correction
• Intent awareness: consideration for an agent acting on behalf of a user may be working from an interpreted goal, not a direct instruction

It’s important to note, none of this requires abandoning what we know about human-centred design. The overall objective is still to serve humans as our primary audience. Instead, this simply means expanding the aperture to serve more effectively in a world where digital products and services are increasingly being augmented by agents.

Trust: the underlying design problem

Alongside the mechanical question of how agents navigate interfaces, there underlies a harder, more pressing human question: how do people develop and maintain trust in AI-powered products to act on their behalf?

Much like leading-edge technologies, in a bid to be first to market, early agentic products have moved faster than user readiness allows. Features shipped before the interaction patterns were mature. Agents made decisions users didn’t expect or didn’t understand. And users who felt burned by these hallucinations became resistant to AI features, regardless of their actual (or hyped) reliability.

This has created a trust debt. An issue that’s hard to shake and has direct commercial consequences for businesses: lower adoption, higher support load, damage to brand perception. And it is, fundamentally, a design failure, not a model failure.

The best interfaces of the next decade won’t just feel good to use. They’ll be readable, navigable, and recoverable by systems we haven’t built yet.

Designing for human trust in agentic contexts requires a different toolkit than designing for trust in traditional digital products. As a starting point, these emerging patterns are helping to design for both “audiences”:

Transparency before action: clear communication of what the agent is about to do, in terms the user understands, not only a system’s internal logic.

Control at the right moments: not constant confirmation friction, but meaningful pause points at important steps. Claude does a great job of building control into workflows by requesting human input at key moments, with a tone of voice to suit the moment.

Failure explanation: when something goes wrong, the agent must be able to explain what it attempted, what failed, and what the user needs to do next. Opacity at failure destroys trust at speed.

Recovery by design: every agentic flow requires a graceful, low-friction recovery path. This must be designed, not as an edge case, but a primary journey. Examples where history have been clearly considered help the user place themselves in the workflow.

The human “plus” machine shift

We’ve been designing digital experiences under one fundamental assumption: that the entity on the other side of the interface is a human being — with eyes, intuition, a degree of patience and a tolerance for imperfection.

That assumption is not going away. Human users remain at the centre, but the systems acting on their behalf – those interpreting their intent, navigating their digital world, taking actions in their name — are multiplying fast.

This is not a narrowing of the role of Design — it’s an expansion of it. The designers and teams who will matter most in this decade are those who can hold both truths simultaneously: designing for the warmth, clarity and emotional resonance that humans need to build trust, while building structural legibility, explicit state design and addressable failure architecture that intelligent systems need.

—

@stevewhapshott

Director, Experience Design at Sapient

The design industry stands on the cusp of a transformative era as Generative AI gathers increasing momentum every week and the industry continues to scramble to adapt to new ways of working and adopt new tools. All this set against speculation of machines replacing humans with no real understanding of the impact it will ultimately have. What is certain, is the greatest potential will lie in realising a powerful partnership between the two.

The modern day challenge — good versus great

In the digital age, designers face a paradox. New tools have increased velocity to achieve an average baseline of “good” experiences, while (generally speaking) contributing to the fall in number of “great” quality experiences. Standardisation has created a sea of sameness that lacks personality and stand-out. The risk we face with AI, is these problems will become magnified, creating further blandness in a world that desperately craves connection.

For businesses, the opportunity to truly stand-out and innovate — not only in proposition, but in the ability to create meaningful connections — is one of the greatest opportunities we have before us. Attraction, engagement, and affinity are must-haves for any successful brand in any industry and, through Design, AI can help to power the journey to “great”.

The role of design in any industry is to empathise, understand human needs and solve problems to improve lives.

How AI can help us to solve human problems

Before we jump in and start generating series of futuristic cats dancing on a moon made from marble*, or asking cGPT to project future opportunities for <insert industry here>, the question we must ask is, what problem are we solving and why? Design exists to empathise, understand human needs and solve problems to improve lives, and today is no different — we just have new superpowers at our finger tips.

Human x AI can create greater focus where it matters

Generative AI is a Swiss Army Knife of tools. It isn’t a replacement for creativity — it’s an enabler. From alleviating time spent on trivial tasks through to challenging the way we think, the industry is beginning to reflect on where designers’ time and effort is best spent and where AI can rid us of the low value and mundane. If we get this right, we’ll be able to use AI to focus more where it matters. To fill the blank page, drive greater creativity in problem solving, improve quality of experiences through better questions and better prompts, to open our eyes to new avenues of thought, improve product performance and speed up conception to execution.

Though we’re still surfing the tidal wave of change, we’re beginning to recognise areas where Human x AI is bringing new value to designers:

1. Augmenting Design: to replace low-level tasks
2. Collaborative Design: to incrementally improve the output
3. Generation of Design: to generate ideas, content or new “synthetic” materials
4. Self-Optimising Design: to increase performance through smart, self-improving systems
5. Explorative Design: to identify new ways to imagine and create

These areas are fuelling the evolution of the design process in new and interesting ways:

1. Augmenting Design

AI as a utility worker

Reducing human time spent on low-level routine tasks like resizing images, formatting text, design documentation and writing draft emails, will enable designers to focus on strategic thinking, conceptualisation of ideas, and refining the story of design solutions.

2. Collaborative Design

AI as a co-pilot

Co-creating, co-researching, and co-designing towards a greater quality outcome by speeding up the rate in which we work. Through new tools, features and plug-ins, the design process has been hacked and improved — removing slow and laborious activities and increasing the effectiveness of the design process. Think documentation of a design component and research transcript summaries.

3. Generation of Design

AI as a creator

Design works best when tackled as a team — and AI can be one of your greatest allies. Using AI to generate “synthetic” material, we’re able to improve the outcome and standard of delivery. Not only that — we can do so at speed. Remember, the role of the Human is to guide — to empathise with users, understand the human nuances, define the destination, and set principles to direct the generation of a solution. Check out artists and illustrators training AI to generate an extension of their own style (check out exactly.ai), or the use of video generation tools to execute scripts as examples.

4. Self-Optimising Design

AI as a coach

Saving time in the design process is one thing, but self-initiating systems takes us to another level, moving the human to a facilitator role. Utilising feedback, behavioural data, analytics and trends, we’ll begin to see AI used to adapt and refine experiences to better serve their purpose – or as Pontus Wärnestål puts it, AI as an “agentive system”. Think setting up journeys around fraud prevention in banking or live testing feature performance in digital channels.

5. Explorative Design

AI as a pioneer

At more advanced levels, the introduction of AI can help to activate unchartered territories for a design team. Using the AI to disrupt the usual process with new and diverse inputs, we can begin to actively challenge the human creative process and lead us to new and differentiated outputs. The art will be in balancing the fear of the unknown with the comfort of the familiar to push towards unexpected breakthroughs in problem solving.

A watch-out

It is worth a brief mention, the current restriction on some Large Language Models (LLMs) means they rely on past data sets to generate material and there has been evidence to suggest built-in bias despite claims of neutrality. This is something we must all factor into our work. For more detail, see this article by Alexandra Jayeun Lee which gives a good overview of the biases of ChatGPT we should be aware of.

A new era of design

The role of designers will continue to thrive as AI is adopted across these 5 areas, and in doing so, welcomes in the new era of Generative AI Design. An era that combines Human x AI effectively to achieve greater experiences. AI alone won’t solve the lack of originality, complacency and missed opportunity — if anything it will promote it by making these paths easier to follow. So as experiences become more standardised through artificial means — it’s the role of the designer to be unapologetically human. To bring the heart, empathy, energy, and courage. To create wonderful worlds, incredible stories and memorable experiences that touch real people and solve real-world, wicked problems.

If you’re seeing other trends or use cases in your design process, do share in the comments below.

—

@stevewhapshott

Director, Experience Design at Sapient

Authored by a Human, co-piloted by AI in research, drafting and image generation.

Designing for the future: How AI can power greater human experiences was originally published in The Startup on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Movement in the right direction

An event that brings together some of the world’s most intriguing thinkers, challengers, creatives, and disruptors to share a vision for change is one not to miss. Touted as a “celebration of movement in the right direction” the event included speakers from a range of backgrounds in technology, sport, transport, consumer products and more, to celebrate what’s been done, in progress, and to come. For anyone who wants to be a part of positive change and to break from conventions, this event was for you.

For those that didn’t attend, this post is a summary of the themes that caught my attention.

“We should’ve started this 10 years ago”

– Jenny Keisu, CEO X Shore

“It’s about letting your heart lead your brain. If not you’ll end up in a very artificial situation. Imagine trying to make yourself fall in love with someone at a bar”

– Stefan Ytterborn, CEO of CAKE

Collaboration and partnership

One the of biggest themes to land across most discussions was the desire for collaboration. A mentality that we’re in this together and so we must fight together. We’re already behind the curve and heading towards disaster so we must look to partnerships, collaboration and open source tech. All while shifting our mindsets to be inclusive and work together for greater good.

“Partnership is the new leadership”
— Jenny Keisu, CEO X Shore

“We need companies to be open to collaborate”
— Electrolux

“The best form of flattery is copying — I really hope people do copy”
— Robert Falck, CEO Einride

“Reach out, ask for advice and collaborate”
— Anders Forslund, CEO of Heart Aerospace

Listen to your heart

Belief in the mission means listening to your heart. If like many, you believe change needs to happen, listen to the urge and get involved. The emotional pull to do good and to make change happen will inspire others to do the same. It’s a movement of people as much it is a movement of technology.

“It’s about letting your heart lead your brain. If not you’ll end up in a very artificial situation. Imagine trying to make yourself fall in love with someone at a bar”
— Stefan Ytterborn, CEO of CAKE

Have courage to get started

The climate challenge is a huge thing to wrap your head around — it can cause us to freeze like a deer in the headlights. To start is to have courage. If you have an idea or the drive, motivation and skills to bring to the party — don’t wait.

Motivation gets you half way, discipline gets you the rest. You have to feed your motivation
— Nils van der Poel, Olympic gold medalist: speed skating

“Just start. If you have an idea, just start. Fail fast, or join one of the teams doing it. We should’ve started this 10 years ago.”
— Jenny Keisu, CEO X Shore

We need to electrify everything

There are opportunities in our daily lives and the lifecycles of products that can sometimes get missed. Making positive change is not all about new things — it’s about being more efficient with what we have and making better decisions when it counts. When an appliance comes to the end of its lifecycle, make the decision to modernise and go electric. Think about breaking convention and habit by challenging yourself every time. Check out Saul Griffith’s book, Electrify: An optimists playbook for our clean energy future to learn more.

Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint — optimistic but feasible — for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and an altogether healthier environment.

— Saul Griffith, inventor and author

Digital and data are cornerstones of going electric

Making products and services that achieve the measures of success for a sustainable future means being able to measure and track impact. As we design the future, the need to be connected, to gather data and to use it to inform our decisions is a must. This begins with a focus on digital and a holistic, converged approach to an ecosystem in which a product exists. For those on the journey, make sure these are a core part of your strategy.

“If you want to go electric then you need to go digital — then utilise data”
— Electrolux

Finding inspiration in others

As a company, Einride are making big claims and strides towards a better future. The tech they’re developing looks to create “one battery cell that enables the future of transportation” — something showcased at the event through new software and hardware — aiming to create modular, autonomous products. Coming together to celebrate all that is happening in the mobility space is a big part of the journey towards change — one to inspire, start conversation, drive awareness and connect minds and create partnerships for anyone working in this space.

A big thanks to Einride and all speakers for the learnings. All images sourced from the event and owned by Einride.

—

@stevewhapshott

Creative Director, Experience Design at frog

Reimagining the value economy to drive greater experiences for people and planet.

If you’re in the travel sector, 2020 was a rude awakening. An industry changed overnight by a pandemic that changed the world overnight.

But a year or so prior an idea had come to surface to reimagine a world with reduced need and reliance on air travel. This centred around the need to do better for our planet and climate.

We launched an internal project to explore the possibilities for this speculative future, and grounded it with a client in mind — Finnair. A company representative of a nation known for community values of equality, fairness and a love for the outdoors — and who at the time was the spiritual homeland of our company. We explored the notion that the fundamental concept of travel needed new meaning if we’re to hit our Paris agreement goal — and to offer new growth opportunities to a business that relies on those seeking meaningful adventures via air.

The idea was grounded in a core problem: how might we increase the value of travel while, at the same time, reduce the impact on our planet?

To frame the challenge, we began with some hard data. The total direct contribution of tourism on GDP was valued at £2.89 trillion in 2019 with $4.69 trillion spent by leisure travellers — this bringing new life to destinations and enabling visitors to immerse in new cultural experiences. But the cost to our planet’s air in flights alone that same year totalled 915 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.*

To rethink the industry, we must consider the balance between unnecessary energy use and the constant desire to create greater memories – something unattainable in digital-only environments.

It meant putting people at the centre and rethinking values, markets and experiences.

It meant rethinking the way we travel and explore the world.

The concept

Introducing Adventure Starter

A global community of travellers and small businesses who together enable memorable and meaningful adventures.

Adventurers can discover, share, or fund adventures, and by doing so, create the best adventures possible.

Small businesses can grow their reputation, increase the value of their offering, and gain financial backing.

Finnair can disrupt the industry, allowing the continuous generation of new, innovative revenue streams.

“What if common good could unite everybody? When I look around here… opportunities, innovations, creativity, making business together… that is creating common good.”

— Sauli Niinistö, President of Finland, Slush 2017

Exploring the factors leading to a societal shift, we found:

• Businesses are people — and the public hangs more than ever on the words of influencers.
• People want businesses to take an active role in positive change in the world — the urgency is growing and brands must take action and lead the way.
• Decentralisation is real — the power shift from business to the customer and the need for reliable, secure transactions sees blockchain technology growing rapidly.
• People want personal, unique experiences — the experience economy brings value beyond function. And differentiates great brands from good.
• People expect combined brand experiences, not single-point interactions — it’s not enough to do one thing well and forget the rest. The opportunity to grow a brand is in every moment, every touchpoint, for every customer.

New value for adventurers

We imagined a new circular model for the ‘common good of adventure’ and put power in the hands of the traveller — or adventurer. It was about maximising experiences at minimum cost to the planet with the launch of Adventure Tokens.

Adventurers can discover, share, or fund adventures, and by doing so, create the best adventures possible. We prototyped the tokens using Ethereum and, working with our tech partner, created a live purchase journey as a mock-transaction to bring the moment to life.

A community that gives back

From Adventurer Seekers to Adventure Providers, and the world of Creators in between, the opportunity to immerse yourself in a new found world — where giving back is as valuable as going forth — and inspiring others as you go. Imagine if your next big adventure was essentially funded by others. Where small businesses can grow their reputation, increase the value of their offering, and gain financial backing. This circular economy model is how we view the future — and the possibility of travel for the common good.

Invested in adventure

The more you engage, the greater your value in the community. This decentralised platform underpinned the concept — it was important to establish direct value in connecting and rewarding the people necessary for great adventures.

Loyalty is a relationship, not a scheme

Shifting from expensive loyalty programmes to low-cost, self-sustaining ecosystems. Blockchain technology enabled us to tokenise, verify, track, and reward any contributions made to the ecosystem — creating a circular economy and trusted community.

It’s this that powers the social currency of Adventure Starter — allowing adventurers to build experiences, for businesses to grow, and for new revenue streams for the platform owner.

The brand benefits

A company like Finnair has the ability to disrupt traditional models of the travel industry, allowing a continuous generation of innovative new revenue streams and a new belief in those that travel our world. It’s action people seek from brands. By supporting an ecosystem that puts the power of experiences in the hands of the experience-makers, an airline company can diversify its offering to enable greater adventures for all — at a reduced cost to our planet.

Fast-forward to today

Crypto, creator economies, brand coins, NFTs – as new digital technologies take off, this same concept of value creation feels apt, as brands begin to consider future investments in the metaverse.

With a new model of engagement comes the opportunity for followers to access greater experiences — where they can participate or take a stake in part-ownership of a brand’s next step. You hear about loyal fans — this introduces a whole new level of engagement.

As you ponder the shift to a planet-friendly, carbon-positive future, think about how you might view it as an opportunity to evolve. To challenge the norm and develop future-facing revenue streams. To rethink your products and services as meaningful new experiences. To amass the power of your followers to drive experiences that save our planet.

Now that’s a future worth exploring.

—

@stevewhapshott

Creative Director, Experience Design at frog.

Shout out to the team: Mike W, Mike J, Jan, Victor, Mikko-Pekka, Graham, Dan, Edward and Oli.

Sources: *Worldwide, flights produced 915 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019: Air Transport Action Group (ATAG). Direct and total contribution of travel and tourism to GDP worldwide from 2006 to 2019: Statista.

As Idean grew from 170 to 750+ people in the space of a year, evolving the story of our brand became crucial to scaling successfully.

But inspiring, driving and owning a brand at scale is no mean feat. Branding agencies will tell you as much — with the eye-watering costs and the odd emerging grey hairs to prove it. We set out on a journey to tackle this head on, by putting our people first and at the heart of our brand.

Living by example

As thinkers, makers and doers, we aim to live by example. So as the company grew into 2018, we were determined to revisit the brand to have a refreshed purpose for our people, old and new, across the globe.

Starting out with hundreds of questions, a Post-it wall of pains, an auditor’s notebook (or two) of past stories and a general sense of positivity, we began our journey of discovery. It was an eye-opener. The findings helped us bring meaning to the journey we were on, began to bring clarity to what we stand for, and belief in where we’re going next. We brought together people from across our network of studios — involving everyone from leadership to fresh starters — with the aim of capturing shared meaning and spirit in our brand.

Global direction. Local flavour.

From the beginning we had a view that a strong brand system is finding a balance of clear rules and creative freedom. For a brand to work at scale, rules are the central pillars for consistency — but for a brand to live, breathe and adapt it needs to be open to evolve. Ultimately, it’s this balance that would promote our culture and give our teams the opportunity for ownership.

This view was (and still is) defined as: Global direction. Local flavour. It’s about giving every Ideanist the ability to play their part and roll their local studio culture and clients into the brand.

Creating a platform for success

When building our brand, it was important to start at the heart of why we exist. This informs everything that comes after. How we work. How we express ourselves. What we do in the world. Our brand platform brings us together around a common purpose, and provides direction and guidance to challenge what’s possible – from values to visuals.

To capture and share this, we borrowed from our experience across brand and design, integrating and combining different models to find one that worked for us. The result is a model that captures the relationship between our smart approach to problem solving and our creative appetite: a bold bunch of people with the ability to think differently and challenge the possibilities in what we do.

We captured this at the centre of our brand platform as our WHY:

We’re fearlessly human and exist to challenge what’s possible

How we express ourselves

The way we share our beliefs and express ourselves through the brand needed to reflect the spirit of our people. It sets out with some clear goals in mind. To grow our culture. To communicate our purpose, our spirit and our personality. To grow our brand and attract new talent. We believe these things will help us achieve excellence everyday.

Embracing human imperfections

Our visual identity is based on ‘human energy’. We wanted it to embrace human imperfections to be authentic to this idea. The flaws, the little details that truly make us who we are and, well, human. It’s an unapologetically bold look that champions who we are and the way we work. The identity captures our fearless expression of human actions, balanced with a foundation of beautiful, considered design.

Making a mark

“Make a mark” is designed as a flexible system that gives our network of studios creative freedom and connects all of us globally. The team created a whole suite of graphic elements using mark-making techniques that enables everyone to creatively express themselves. Add to this new colours, presentation templates and illustrations to play with. To empower our teams to work collaboratively to continue to evolve the brand, we also created custom brushes, an illustration toolkit [see Jess’ post on our brand illustration], and shared working Figma files.

Things we learned along the way

1. Move at speed (but accept some things just take time)

One of our goals was to achieve results quickly and effectively, much like our design approach. This kept energy high and sessions intense. However, there were moments where we simply needed time. This is a requirement of the creative process, so when things aren’t moving swiftly and pressures are mounting, don’t panic. Take a step back and let the ideas percolate.

2. Avoid secrecy (where possible)

Branding projects ask questions of the current existence. It’s a part of the process. It also flirts with the idea of change from an early stage. This is something people naturally react negatively to so make sure you have a clear story of why you’re doing what you’re doing and most importantly, who you’re doing it for.

3. Spend time face to face

It’s difficult (and costly) to get everyone in a room together when you’re working at a global scale. Find some key moments (for us it was the kick off workshop) to get to know each other, socialise, find individual strengths and work out how to work as a team.

4. Stay strong — branding from the inside isn’t easy

You’ll definitely face some tough challenges. It’s the nature of the task. Something that impacts people, culture and our expression can be subjective. Take the feedback on board, understand the perspective and move forward.

5. Get buy-in from above

From the practitioner up to C-suite, it’s important to have a purpose that resonates and works for all. We’re in a fortunate position to have a global CEO who understands the value of brand to the organisation, so we created a simple business case to show the impact of the work we were doing.

6. Hangout regularly

Continuous conversation, critique and course correction is key to success. Even when deep in a problem client-side, taking 15mins to check-in helps keep the team motivated and on track.

7. The collaboration factor

Arguably one of the toughest parts when working with people in different studios and across many time zones. The 4–6pm window is where most chat happened between our US, Europe and Nordic participants.

8. Appoint Ambassadors

Ongoing governance and evolution of the system is important to keep us on track and share our collective findings through something we call Brand Spotting. Our fortnightly catch up invites the brand ambassadors from each studio to discuss their latest design work, ask questions, give feedback or flag an issue.

9. Involve people, make friends and have fun

Don’t forget to have fun together and enjoy the journey! There will be tough moments but you’ll come through it stronger and form better relationships with your team across the world.

The value of brand

The challenges we faced are by no means unique to us. For any business setting out to disrupt an industry, reposition in market, rethink an offering, or refocus on purpose, the role brand plays can determine the success or failure of your strategy. We know customers care ever-increasingly about what you stand for. Don’t ignore the value brand has for your organisation, to your products and services, and, more importantly, in the life of your customer.

If you have a fearlessly human spirit and think you’ve got what it takes to challenge what’s possible, check out our latest job posts.

Want to know more?

Further reading and useful links below:

Bring your brand to life in beta — Ines explains why you should care about your brand

How having +700 illustrators works for our brand — Jess gives you an insight into our global illustration system

The design & brand gap — I explain how design and brand teams can be more effective

—

A huge thank you to everyone that was involved along the journey. This wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible efforts of the #brand team. All photo credits to Petri Heiskanen.

@stevewhapshott

In a world of fast-moving, user centred product design sprints, the value of brand can easily be overlooked.

A recent project highlighted this increasingly common problem.

As we finished the fifth sprint of six, a question arose. “When will Brand see this?”

A good question. One that had actually been discussed at length at the beginning. One that, it was decided, could be addressed at a later date in favour of moving quickly. One that came back to bite.

In this example, we were working on designing an experience for a digital product to bring people and knowledge closer together. A product that has the potential to drive efficiency of teams. A product that can create a more effective outcome by sharing knowledge and in doing so, deliver better experiences for customers. A product experience, you could argue, that needs the values of the brand.

More often these days, a business can consist of a single product as its main touchpoint (think of most apps in the App Store). With this single-product focus, the importance of expressing the brand through the design of a product experience is more important than ever. The problem is the expectation. Agile, lean, iterative. All words that business-folk are becoming well versed in. Words that suggest an increase in pace, with little or no attention to increase in the quality of craft, impression or emotional integrity.

Brand versus Design

Brand

The legacy that comes with the term ‘branding’ is a tricky one. It has baggage. The perception of old methods, long timelines, marketing driven and a top down approach that has product designers recoiling backwards at the mention of a Brand Guidelines book. Brand has become wrapped up in bureaucracy and a mindset that removes creative evolution in place of mindless consistency.

Baggage aside, the real role of brand is a vital one. Expressed by intangible elements of visual identity, tone of voice, personality and values, brand captures the purpose and spirit of an organisation, establishing the direction of evolution and definition of existence. This is the intangible measure that users align their own selves with. The problem is that this clarity has been lost in big businesses. Something that needs to change.

Design

The value of the design approach to business challenges is adaptability. It has problem solving at its core and can move quickly to respond to any circumstance. Listening and learning are central pillars in being able to create memorable and meaningful experiences for users. New sign-in screens that remove a barrier to entry. Onboarding flows to educate a new user and reduce churn. A complete new mobile app experience to deliver a new business proposition. A bot that reduces call-centre contact. All potential outcomes of listening and learning.

Much like the brand perception however, this doesn’t come without its flaws. With smaller teams comes smaller scope, smaller budgets and more focus on incremental steps and continuous delivery. This means the intangible craft is being de-scoped in favour of more tactical business goals. The concern is the increased risk in overlooking the longer-term vision — something crucial to building a product strategy [as Daniel Ruston talks about in his article Design for Vision, ensuring your product helps users achieve their goals, makes their lives better, and ultimately provide real meaning].

When speed & agility meet purpose & meaning

To design an effective product we need to understand the brand direction; the purpose, where the business is going, why it exists, and how to navigate an agile mindset of evolution.

To build an effective, efficient and impactful brand we need the thinking, methodology, systems and implementation found in a design & development team.

And these always begin by understanding people.

We mustn’t lose sight of the business ambition when creating experiences and micro-experiences for customers. People expect a level of consistency with an organisation at product, service and organisation marketing level.

Designing a new set of screens for a user flow can easily become a highly functional job. The reality is it’s only one part of the equation. Yes, users need to be able to complete a task with ease and minimal barriers. But what shouldn’t be overlooked is the emotional integrity. The personality. The thing that connects with users beyond jobs. Beyond tasks. The intangible things that make brands like Nike… Nike. It’s the belief in what the company stands for. The WHY (as Simon Sinek brilliantly demonstrates). It’s what drives the company that keeps people committed for the long term.

What users achieve today helps build habit. What users feel today helps build the culture.

The point is that neither approach is wrong. But together they are much stronger. Together they achieve practical experience goals and connect with the subconscious. It’s the perfect combination of brand strategy and experience design. Companies like Amazon are hard at work to align broader experiences across their entire product suite in their new OneDesign system — ultimately developing the holistic Amazon experience. The brand experience.

What could you do to kick start this relationship?

Start by asking questions and challenging yourself and your team. Here are a few thought-starters:

Find ways to collaborate

How can you involve a brand / product designer earlier? What role could they play in building an approach to a better product or telling a stronger brand story? (Try taking some storytelling tips from ex-Pixar story artist Emma Coats.)

Uncover common challenges

What challenges do each team face? How can you put yourself in the other teams shoes to understand their needs?

Understand ways of working

What goals and processes do each team have? How do they differ and what impact could this have on your project?

Share specialist skillsets

What role could each team play in your project? What skills or knowledge can you leverage to design a better outcome together?

Get to know each other

How can you get to know the other team better? Can you grab a coffee, attend a workshop or team up on an initiative? (Often something as simple as a conversation can open up great new opportunities).

Drive forward with purpose

How can you tell better stories together?

Bridging the gap between the product reality and customer-facing brand material is a conversation that happens frequently with new and existing clients alike. Depending on the team depends on which end of the scale you sit. But think for a moment about the true value if you can get this right. Both teams working towards a common goal. One that drives the purpose and vision as well as enabling your team to adapt and evolve. As the ever changing landscape shifts and new technology arises, it’s important to ensure you’ve built a story and belief for tomorrow, that you can put into practice today.

—

@stevewhapshott

The design & brand gap was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s why you’re here. The specialist. The professional. The much needed fresh perspective. The creative energy your client needs to overcome the challenge that lays before them. After all, they aren’t designers, trained in colour theory with an in-depth understanding of user personas and the Bauhaus movement. But they are professionals in their own right and they have a view to share.

It can be easy for people to get lost in the soft, squishy world of the designer when colour palettes, fonts and visual treatments are being discussed. For a designer that’s pumped their heart and soul into an idea that gets shot down, it can be a bitter pill to swallow. Making sure conversations are always happening from the perspective of the end user will support your design rationale. The framing technique “it works because…” rather than “I like this because…” is a simple way to remove personal views and move forward based on project needs and goals. On top of this — and often the part that get’s forgotten — is learning to put yourself in your client’s shoes to realise their motivations and personal challenges beyond the design work that can directly or indirectly affect the feedback. Anything from opinions of more senior management, to past experiences or performance goals can play a part. Taking time to appreciate this will help you remain positive for the greater good of the work and show a higher level of understanding to your client.

So how can we improve communication with ‘us creative types’ to build stronger relationships with clients and fellow designers?

A design experience framework

In my experience, setting out a framework for the team can be a strong, positive foundation. Aligning the design team and client on simple criteria means less frustration and more productivity. Below I’ve adapted a set of principles I created for a recent project that covers visual, functional and emotional aspects to consider when creating and reviewing designs.

The purpose is twofold; to establish the level of rigour involved in great design, and to be open and transparent with clients to the challenges faced by the design team.

1 — Does it put the user first?

The design should be familiar and create the best possible experience to address user needs and the primary user journey. Ask yourself, does the user care?

2 — Is the design purposeful?

The interface should be clear, direct and coherent. Does each element have a particular role?

3 — Can it be simplified?

The design should portray confidence and be considered in it’s approach. Strip away the unnecessary.

4 — Does it express the desired personality?

The visual language should be aligned with the values, positioning and drivers of the project. How does the design make you / the user feel?

5 — Have we thought ahead?

Rules require a structured system but should also be flexible and open to building a better onward experience. Are there future needs or adaptations that could be considered?

6 — Is the content king?

Design elements should support and deliver the content in the best possible way. Don’t let the design restrict the content.

7 — Are functions and actions clear?

Language is important and should guide the user on their journey. Buttons should feel like buttons. Are the signposts clear?

8 — Does it excite you?

Aim high with the design. Don’t always settle for an expected or out-of-the-box solution — push to be progressive and entertaining where possible.

9 — Is it efficient?

Consistency of scale and proportion throughout the design will make for a better experience and support content creators and developers. In partnership with pushing the design to be progressive, a balance should be found that manages time vs. effort for overall efficiency.

There’s no substitute for good old fashioned groundwork in building rapport and taking the time to really know your stuff.

Created to help guide design and feedback, this framework is far from unique or ‘complete’ — it will and should evolve over time. For me it’s proven useful in starting conversations and building stronger relationships within teams — and that really is the point here. Often all you need is a conversation starter. A nudge to guide you in a particular direction.

For those leading design teams give it a try and by all means add or adapt principles to suit your project. If you find additional ways that work well for you feel free to share.

—

Tweet @stevewhapshott
Insta @stevewhapshott
Get inspired @GoodFromYou

A s part of a recent digital transformation project with a top-flight football club, I got the chance to tap into global research to learn about the state of the broad and diverse fan-drivers at play in the world of sport. Many factors contribute to the needs of fans around the world, including cultural maturity, social influencers, access and availability. For clubs these days, understanding this information is critical to staying relevant and continuing to grow.

What does the future of ‘fan experience’ look like in a fast-moving digital age and how will brands begin to adopt new ways of connecting with their fanbase to stay relevant?

The problems a lot of clubs face these days is that they aren’t set up for the fast moving world of social consumption. They have a traditional sports brands set up around the game of football and, though a few are moving forward into this new world, it’s clear that it requires some dramatic changes to stay on track. A club that doesn’t value it’s fans and look to understand their needs and challenges is a club that will begin to lose it’s relevance. Die-hard fans aside, it’s the new generations of ‘snapchatters’ and ‘instagrammers’ that need to be captured in new ways.

The ever-increasing presence of Facebook, Google and Amazon as content delivery and media brands mean traditional media brands — or the clubs themselves — need to be smart, find their place and move fast to adapt, building teams that can deliver valuable content and experiences for fans. Check out the recent panel discussion at Method that highlights this.

There are many great examples of brands leading the way and putting fans at the centre of campaigns, some even pushing further to brand-centred propositions. Toronto Raptor’s We The North campaign is a great example, created to ‘unite people around a mindset and pride of place’, sparking a brand crusade across the community that lives on. It’s a powerful statement of pride that every fan lives by, on and off the field.

How could we create an experience that puts fans at the heart, in a way that will allow the club to build a vision and valuable fan relationship in the future?

1 — We started learning about the fans

In discovery mode we began by understanding fan needs, frustrations and barriers to give us some much clearer understanding of the landscape. What equates to value for different fan profiles around the world? How can we create an experience that gives fans what they need, as well as entertain and delight them in ways that didn’t consider?

More relevance, more engagement and to feel valued.

It came as no real surprise that fans want more relevance, more engagement and to feel valued. The broader realisation this brought with it however was much clearer. Without fans, the club cannot achieve the success — certainly not at the level we were dealing with. After all football is entertainment for millions and fans are not only a key source of revenue, but the creators of the fan community that clubs value so much.

2 — We looked at broader influences

Identifying key trends across the markets allowed us to predict what the future could hold and help shape the experience we needed to create. This included the increase in social personalities promoting fit and healthy lifestyles, the booming eSports gaming industry, a need for more ownership of personal online data, the rise of dual-screening and the increase of fan creator channels (i.e. twitch), to list just a few. For the team this helped contextualise the approach and inspire the vision for the project.

3 — We identified the Club’s value

The club understands the key assets they have to hand are the players themselves and they have a great opportunity to create more ‘own-able content’. Being first with news, discussing unique club topics and utilising partners to add real value would be the start, along with unique fan features to get them closer to players and action than ever before. But with this said, they need to move fast. Players are fast realising their social worth. As addressed in this digiday article, a handful have already employed agencies to build their own online brand experiences that allow fans to connect directly with the player, putting the potential value for the club at risk.

4 — We defined a framework

From the findings we built user personas and fan engagement journey’s to ensure we understood the full lifecycle of the our fans. We went on to highlight key fan moments and built the terms of engagement around each. This framework allowed creativity to flow, always guided by the lives of our fans. It was important to acknowledge too that these personas should be evolved and built on over the course of the project as we learned more about the fan-base.

5 — We brought the vision to life

‘Beyond football’

Our proposal was a powerful new personality, vision and positioning for the Club, putting fans at the heart of everything they did. From unique content, to new features, a way to champion user-generated content and a native advertising program with partners designed to add value at all times with real context for fans. We set a brand positioning and vision to extend ‘beyond football’ and into the everyday lives of the fans. Fans we understood much better.

The stage for success

A platform to build and adapt.

Alongside the brand work was a digital transformation proposal, showing how we could create a multi-channel experience designed to connect the global fan-base through a co-creation platform — something that could be built on over time. This would be delivered primarily through a club app that “enhanced the expected and created an opportunity to expand and grow.”

The app would house a multitude of features that included concepts for VR atmosphere experiences to bring fans closer to the game, the ability to react to in-game events, a unique pundit commentary selector, a fan-reporter that you could influence and even a coach chat-bot that allowed fans to join a conversation with other fans around the world.

Every idea was built on principles we’d defined around the fan journey:

Access
Onboard fans & build excitement about the unique digital offering.

Immerse
Prepare and immerse fans into the ‘best match-day experience’.

Participate
Offer fans a unique dual screen experience that follows and enhances the live game experience.

Celebrate
Celebrate the match, the fans and the team performance together.

Remember
Remember and be rewarded - celebrate your place as a fan.

A realistic view on the future

The project aimed to set a vision for fan experience and to understand how the club can ‘stay relevant’, it’s important to recognise the proposal is not an overnight change. The findings uncovered some real business challenges around systems, people and processes that are fundamental to the new vision along with some learnings to take forward:

Play better together — online and offline.

Matchday is more than football — go beyond the pitch.

Give partners more relevance and work together.

Create content with fans — give them a voice and sense of pride.

Be a loyalty club — not a club with a loyalty program

Changing the business model, creating a new content strategy, developing a fresh design language all take time and alignment to work. The learnings were designed to be broad and bold to help the team focus on the journey ahead. When moving such big a business through change it’s important everyone is aligned.

Our learnings also highlighted some of the challenges working with clubs in the manner we did. With the business verticals running very separately the challenge to ensure all departments were onboard and aligned was a big one. Having buy-in at the top is essential and with the senior team changing mid-project we experienced some tough moments and pivots. It’s fair to say these can’t always be foreseen and it’s how you deal with the situation that counts. Equally it’s a great learning to take out — ensure the most senior business leads are onboard throughout — it’ll make for a smoother ride.

Listen to the coach — speed and agility apply to the business as much as the players on the pitch.

Looking ahead

There’s a great opportunity in the present day for clubs to look ahead and realise the power of fans in their vision. Football today is bigger than the beautiful game. It’s entertainment. It’s a lifestyle. It’s having fun and being social. It brings people together. It makes people feel accepted.

Think beyond the game to connect with your fans and shape an experience around them to move forward.

—

Tweet @stevewhapshott
Insta @stevewhapshott
Get inspired @GoodFromYou

Its been a number of years now since Charlie and I started logging creative inspiration and references. It began way back when we worked at an agency together and craved inspiration to inspire and share. The problem was a frustration at the lack of consistently great creative resources and ideas. The time spent trying to remember where we saw ‘that thing’ or ‘the thing that did X’ led to the need for a simple reference log.

What began as our personal log of ideas, fast became an outward-facing show of appreciation to the people behind them. We understood great ideas and creativity was something that was shared and loved by many, and we felt it was right to make sure credit’s given where credit’s due.

Our challenge throughout has been dedicating time. Time to uncover references that we feel are meaningful enough and to share our thoughts on each; something we feel is important for anyone using the site. With both of us in busy ‘day jobs’ as design and creative directors respectively, it’s easy for the energy to subside and prevent us from finding time to update the site. Despite these ups and downs, our desire to capture and share quality content in a platform to inspire others keeps us excited, and to this day we continue dedicating time to curate what we feel is a collection of the best ideas from around the world. We’ve gone on to add a feature that showcases some of our brilliant friends we’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years too, making for more personal and insightful stories to be shared with you all and help young creatives understand what it takes to do well.

Recently we spent time improving the user experience of the site, aiming to deliver a better user journey and interface built by our trusty friends at Squarespace. The idea for the design was always for a simple interface that champions the work, something we found in a simple template that meets our needs as curators. The site has continued to grow as we explore Instagram and Twitter as our means of sharing. This is an area that we hope will continue to grow so long as we have the capacity, something we’re already looking to resolve in the near future. For us, organic growth and reach is vital to ensuring an honest platform and this means building an approach that works for us and our followers.

For now the new site is live so check it out and be sure to post your feedback here. There will be more coming from us over the next few months so stay updated @goodfromyou on Twitter or Instagram.

goodfromyou.co