Design Authority

Traditional approaches have typically siloed ownership within IT, marketing, or digital departments—creating fragmentation, competing priorities, and ultimately, disjointed customer experiences.

A Design Authority offers a more effective alternative—establishing shared governance and accountability to ensure your digital platforms deliver cohesive, high-performing experiences aligned with strategic business objectives.

It is a cross-functional governance framework that brings together key stakeholders to collectively guide, validate and maintain the strategic direction of your digital experience platforms. Unlike traditional departmental ownership models, a Design Authority transcends organizational boundaries to create unified vision, leadership, and oversight.

The scope of Authority

Clearly defining what falls under the Design Authority's purview is critical for success. The most effective Design Authorities establish oversight across several interconnected areas. They typically guide digital experience strategy and roadmap development, setting the long-term vision while balancing immediate needs. They establish and maintain experience design standards and patterns to ensure consistency across touchpoints.

Platform architecture and technology decisions fall within their domain, as do content governance frameworks and data models that support the entire digital ecosystem. The Authority also typically oversees integration standards and API frameworks to enable smooth connections between systems, and defines performance metrics and measurement approaches to evaluate digital success against business objectives.