templatedata

One thing that I have been belly-aching about for years is branding and the web. Specifically the problem of aligning print and web publications. This applies to general branding institution-wide and specific campaigns. The process usually goes something like this:

- Idea hatched
- Campaign developed
- Graphics / other print collatarel developed and signed off
- Posters / publications / post-its printed
- Distribution
- Oh! We need a website. We've made up a URL and put it on our brochure!
- Can you build a website that will look like this brochure? The images and text in the brochure will do won't it?
- Website cobbled together using branding, images and text never intended for the web and constrained by existing CMS templates and website branding that often has no relationship to campaign material.
- Oh. That website is not exactly what we wanted but it will do.
- User distinctly undewhelmed by online experience

Experience. This is the key word here. A website isn't just about getting a specific message across, it's about providing an experience. I'm not talking about some wizz-bang, knock-my-socks-off experience. Just an EASY experience. An experience that isn't difficult and doesn't leave a bad taste in the mouth.

So, with a re-branding exercise on the horizon, it's timely that Damon Dimmick has said all this much better than I can in Don't let branding kill your brand.

Of all the arguments for modifying brand attributes to better suit a digital experience, the most compelling is this: The way users feel about their experience is inseparable from the way they feel about your brand.

I was struck by his assertion that it is time for designers to stop passing the buck. Although we know that a lot of the time the brand problem is out of our hands, we can at least be evangelists and make it easier for those making decisions to make the right ones.

Fault doesn’t matter. Responsibility does. At the end of the day, as user experience professionals, it is our responsibility to advocate on behalf of the user. That means we have to be champions of the user experience, and sometimes that means going against the status quo.

Ok, I'll end my rant now. Seriously though, go and read it.