As you already know your brand is not just a name, a logo, a set of colors, or a positioning statement. Your brand is the culmination of all encounters people have with your product or service. There are very few contact points where those encounters can have more influence or create more pitfalls than the online experience.

Users approach all online offerings with two key expectations of user experience; the functional experience, how well a visitor can get information or perform the necessary tasks, and the emotional experience, the desire to have meaningful and memorable interactions that engage you in a personal way. The sum total of these experiences within your online offering will color their perception and build a brand image in their mind.

In terms of addressing Total User Experience as it relates to brand, functional satisfaction is the most controllable and direct opportunity to effect a positive brand perception in the user. At the functional level, satisfaction must be the norm. From a brand perception, this is where there is the biggest opportunity to fail. The functional aspects of your offering may have little to do with your overall product or service in that a user may not even be conscious of the functional failing of the offering. However in that failing, the user will experience emotions of frustration and doubt that will translate to the brand and create a negative effect on the users' overall brand perception. Functional satisfaction is the baseline of user experience, what users have come to expect from a web offering. It has become the price-of-entry for doing business online.

In the earlier days of interactive design, Usability was considered an esoteric discipline and functionality was a direct effect of the technology of the day. Marketers and designers (I admit, myself included) producing new-media, drew from our experience with the old-style mass-market push of print and broadcast media. In our desire to capture those sought-after emotions and 'eyeballs', we incorporated "image" as the principal concept for branding. User profiles or scenarios did not play a roll in defining our solutions. Merely being seen defined success. These misconceptions about the concepts of branding and online media heralded the dotcom implosion, the introduction of the 'skip intro' button and a Neilson attitude towards any element that was not purely for function. We gave up on the idea of User Experience and settled for Usability as the essence of our online brand.

It was a necessary lesson and one central to the success of any online offering. "It's about the user."

But what about the idea of experiencing delight, surprise, or even desire? Only if the users' functional needs are met do we have the opportunity to affect the user at the emotional level as well. Without function, little else matters. In addressing the online user experience from a totally functional level we are missing the opportunity to engage users in more meaningful and memorable interactions that drive to the higher planes of brand perception.

Be it a consumer e-commerce offering or healthcare information portal, the most compelling user experiences are ones that are simple, natural to use, and satisfy the users' immediate needs. Beyond these usability criteria, a truly successful offering must also be in complete harmony with the users' life experiences, operational skill, and styling expectations.

Designing for a Total User Experience means going beyond usability. Where as usability and information architecture satisfy the task and information oriented needs of an online audience, Total User Experience design continues to incorporate immersion-oriented components such as interaction design, and visual/sensory design into the solution. Each of these aspects work together to play a vital role in the total user experience— from a user's initial awareness, through additional discovery, initial use, ordering, fulfillment, day-to-day use, service, support, and end-of-use.

Ultimately, users should find your offering seductive and totally in keeping with their life style, personality, and functional needs. An affinity such as this creates 'pride by association' with the offering, resulting in loyalty to the brand.