User experience and brand experience — are they two sides of the same coin? While both brand experience and user experience inherently focus on the same thing — the user — there are a few key differences in the way they do it. In this article, we will explore both concepts and see how a brand experience is different from user experience.

User experience

Don Norman is a person who coined the term UX. He defines UX as “everything that touches upon your experience with a product.” User experience is a journey a user goes through in order to reach their goals with your product. User experience is all about interactions — no matter what touchpoints users interact with, they should always have a seamless UX.

User interface design

UI design plays a key role in user experience. It’s something that can make or break your user experience. When it comes to UI design, it’s possible to measure it in terms of usability. Success rate (whether users can perform the task at all), the time a task requires, the error rate, and users’ subjective satisfaction are the most common usability metrics

User engagement and satisfaction

User engagement and satisfaction are things that influence conversion and retention — two key customer experience metrics. User experience is typically measured via CSat (Customer Satisfaction Scores), NPS (Net Promoter Score), and CES (Customer Effort Score).

Brand experience

Hard data should work hand-in-hand with UX design to drive design decisions. However, great design is not born out of hard data alone. In fact, a data-driven approach alone will have little to no effect on product success. Having the right vision and communicating it to your users is what really important. And this is what brand experience is all about.

In comparison with user experience, brand experience caters to the user, even before they become a user. Brand experiences rely heavily on design and advertising to communicate a specific message and make users feel a certain way about the brand. Brand experience is a relatively broad concept that can be divided into a few parts — brand identity, brand consistency, and brand promise.

Brand identity

What are the things that come to your mind when you think about a particular brand? When we think about branding, our thoughts probably go more quickly to logos, slogans, colors, fonts, sound effects, and writing styles.

Imagine two companies that sell similar products and target similar consumers. To make things more specific, let’s think about Coca Cola and Pepsi. The first thing that comes to mind when we think about Coca Cola is color — energetic red. After that, we picture the name of the brand written using a particular typeface.

Now let’s imagine Pepsi. Again, the first thing that comes to mind is color — intensive blue. Next comes a Pepsi logo which denotes freshness.

Brand’s logo, typefaces, color scheme and icons are attributes that come together to create a big picture, also known brand identity. Without clear brand identity, we won’t be able to imagine the companies.

Brand consistency

Consistency is key in building familiarity with your users, which leads to understanding and trust. That’s why large brands maintain visual and functional brand consistency — they create styleguides that define what colors, fonts and icons should be used in their products, printed and digital media.

Brand promise

Brand attributes are only a small part of what branding means today. Branding is about communicating a message, also known as a brand promise. A well-defined brand promise is something that differentiates a business from competitors.

It’s impossible for users to interact with a brand experience without any awareness. That’s why companies use advertising to spread the message. Below you can see a great ad created for Rolls Royce by one of the best ad men in history — David Ogilvy. The headline says, “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” It’s clear what experience Rolls Royse promises to deliver — quiet and comfortable ride.

The brand promise is based on the values of the brand — it sets a north star that guides a product team. Brand promise should influence the user experience design. Product team should strive to design great user experience for users.

How to connect user experience and brand experience

You need to bridge the gap between the intent of a brand promise and real user experience that people have.

1.Define global objectives

Every business has its purpose. It’s essential to write this purpose in the format of a manifesto and communicate it throughout the entire organization. Everyone should know what the company is trying to achieve and why. It will create a sense of shared purpose and introduce the meaning into product development.

2. Define brand purpose

What is your brand promise and how it is communicated? A brand promise should be baked into the product design and influence key product decisions. Think about using the brand promise as a metric — always question yourself is your brand fulfilling its promise to your users?

3. Collect and analyze user feedback or a regular basis

Product design is a never-ending process. You need to collect and analyze user feedback all of the time because this feedback will help guide product decisions.

Conclusion

Branding can inform UX and UX can define branding. Brand experience and user experience should work together to engage and delight customers. We should aim to convey the desired brand perception to our target audience when defining and designing the characteristics of our products.