Experience Design Is Not About Brands

Don't fall into the trap of conflating experience design with brand experience. People don't engage with “brands”, they engage with people at companies or organizations.

Peterme explains this well in an article at Adaptive Path:

The problem is that "brand" will always be about the impression companies want to make, and are by their nature an ‘inside-out’ proposition — a company figures out its brand and what it means, and does what it can to communicate or otherwise impart that message to people. Brand always starts with the company.

Experience, though, needs to be about the people. What do they want to accomplish, achieve, do? For experience to succeed, it must start with the person, and from there, impress upon the company. “Experience” is outside-in.