UX Meets Branding: How Great User Experiences Build Stronger Brands

Have you ever had a brand experience so seamless and delightful that it stuck with you? Perhaps it was a simple, intuitive app or a website that felt personalized and engaging. These are the kinds of customer experiences that shape our perceptions of brands, fostering loyalty and driving business growth.

User experience (UX) design plays a defining role in shaping your brand. Companies that understand this and align UX with their brand identity can create powerful, lasting connections with their audiences.

How Great UX Design Can Influence Brand Perception and Loyalty

Your brand's identity is more than just a logo or a slogan; it's the sum total of every interaction a customer has with your company. A seamless and intuitive UX can elevate your brand's perceived value.

Chipotle’s app is a prime example of UX done right. It makes ordering a burrito or bowl even easier than the in-store experience. Users can customize their orders at their own pace without the pressure of a busy line, easily create group orders, and schedule it all ahead of time for easy pick-up or delivery.

By making the app ordering process simple, fast, and customizable, Chipotle has elevated its brand identity and embodied its focus on fresh, fast, and customizable food.

Contrast this with brands that deploy poorly designed, clunky, or unnecessary apps and websites that degrade trust and loyalty. When your app is difficult to use or doesn’t align with your company’s promises, your customers feel frustrated and undervalued, damaging your brand’s overall reputation.

The Subtle Art of UX Copywriting

An essential, and often overlooked, aspect of UX design is copywriting. UX copy plays a central role in conveying your brand’s voice and personality. Great copy doesn’t just help users navigate products or services but it reinforces your brand’s identity in subtle and powerful ways.

Have you ever found yourself smiling at an unexpectedly on-brand and witty turn of phrase on a website or app? It’s rare, but when pulled off well these messages can leave a big impression. Whether it’s a playful error message (“Oops, that didn’t work!”) or a welcoming tone that helps users feel seen during the onboarding process, well-crafted UX copy can humanize your brand.

Brands like DoorDash excel in this area. Their casual and friendly tone in their app notifications mirrors their mission to make food delivery easy and enjoyable. It's a subtle but effective way to connect with customers on an emotional level.

Keep in mind, though, that great UX copywriting balances personality and clarity. Users should never feel confused about what action they need to take, even if the copy is lighthearted or creative.

UX Can Be a Gateway to Brand Expansion

UX design isn’t just about maintaining the status quo—it’s also an opportunity to innovate and expand your brand’s reach.

Consider Nike’s online customization platform, Nike By You. This “co-creation service” lets customers design their own shoes, from color palettes to materials, giving them a sense of ownership and creativity. Aside from being a model of great UX design, it also deepens the emotional connection customers have with Nike. It’s an innovative extension of Nike’s brand identity as a champion of individuality and performance.

Similarly, the shift to digital ticketing for movie theaters has transformed how we plan our evenings out. Apps that allow users to reserve specific seats and order snacks ahead of time expand what it means to attend a movie.

These innovations have redefined the standard and straightforward experiences of buying shoes or going to the movies and reinforced these brands’ value in their users’ lives.

The Challenge of Merging UX with Branding

While the opportunities for great UX design to extend and enhance your brand are significant, there are plenty of challenges in designing a user experience that truly aligns with your identity.

One common mistake is the temptation to just transfer over your existing brand assets. Your logos, colors, and typography might look great in your existing formats, whether that includes hard copy posters and signage or static digital websites and online ads. But some of these assets may or may not translate effectively to specific digital experiences.

You need to consider how your assets need to change, or be reinvented, for new contexts. For example, overly intricate fonts or subtle color gradients might look great on large screens but lose legibility on smaller mobile devices as you build out your first app.

Budget constraints can also hinder UX efforts. Too often, businesses focus heavily on traditional marketing and branding efforts while neglecting the digital spaces where customers interact and feel connected to brands. This oversight can lead to inconsistencies and missed opportunities to strengthen your brand identity by helping customers “touch and feel” your brand through great user experiences.

Most importantly, UX design must always prioritize clarity. A button labeled with a fun phrase might add charm, but if users don’t immediately understand its function, the design fails and the experience falls apart. The key is to find the right balance where your brand personality enhances—rather than obstructs—usability.

How to Align Your UX and Brand Identity for Success

If you want to align your UX efforts more seamlessly with your brand identity, the first place to look is in the mirror. What are your brand’s core attributes? What are its values, voice, and personality?

Clearly defining who you are and what you stand for is the first step to translating your brand into impactful UX designs.

Start with Workshops: Collaborate with all of your stakeholders to define your unique brand attributes and positioning in the competitive landscape. These insights will be the foundation to guide your UX strategy. For example, if your brand prioritizes innovation, your UX designs should focus more on cutting-edge features and seamless navigation.

Test Across Platforms: Ensure your brand assets work in both digital and physical spaces. Typography, colors, and logos must remain bold and legible whether viewed on a billboard or a smartphone screen. This might mean you need to refresh or reconsider certain brand attributes and rules regarding use of your logo or other assets.

Focus on Clarity: While personality is important, usability comes first. Every button, message, or interaction should clearly communicate its purpose. Fun and flair can only enhance the experience when they don’t create confusion. Build easy, intuitive, and fluid user experiences first, then look for ways to add your unique voice.

Think Beyond the Status Quo: Don’t just mimic your existing in-person experiences—expand on them. Digital platforms allow your brand to go further, offering features and functions that aren’t possible in the physical world. Look for opportunities to expand how it feels for customers to interact with your brand and products or services.

Measure Your Success: You’ll know you’re successful in aligning your UX efforts with your brand, when you see tangible results, such as increased sales or user retention. Start measuring early by defining success metrics during your initial workshop and track progress against these goals. For example, if your brand emphasizes convenience, measure how much time users save ordering through your app or site rather than on the phone or in person.

How This Looks in the Real World

At Drawbackwards, we’ve successfully helped many companies integrate their UX design and branding efforts.

One of our recent clients was worried about overlap with other companies in different industries who shared their name. We showed them how building an intuitive and well-designed user experience in their app could help them differentiate themselves with their core customers. Drawing inspiration from brands like Apple Music, we demonstrated how a brand’s identity is more than just a name; it’s a complete experience.

By aligning UX design with brand identity, you can ensure your products resonate with your customers in meaningful ways. We’ll help you pick apart your brand attributes to flesh out your underlying voice and tone.

This helps all of your stakeholders see how each piece, from typography to visual assets to copywriting, aligns in a strategic way to turn your two-dimensional brand identity into a three-dimensional brand experience.

UX Design Is Critical for Your Bottom Line

UX design isn’t just a functional necessity; it’s a strategic tool for reinforcing your brand perception and fostering customer loyalty. A seamless digital experience elevates your brand, while misaligned or clunky UX can tarnish it. By investing in UX design and ensuring it aligns with your brand’s identity, you can create memorable experiences that keep customers coming back—and spreading the word.

The brands that succeed in today’s competitive landscape are those that treat UX as an integral part of their identity. Whether you’re an established company refining your presence or a new business building from scratch, aligning your UX with your brand is not just a good idea—it’s essential for long-term success.

Get in touch to find out how Drawbackwards can help you build a stronger brand through great user experiences.