Why Corporate Digital Presence Feels Synthetic
Most corporate websites today feel assembled rather than expressed. Not because companies lack intent, but because they lack authorship. A synthetic digital presence is one that looks complete but lacks a clear, human voice. For years, corporate websites have been shaped by the wrong hands, on both sides. At the client end, the brief has become transactional. “Get us a website.” There is little clarity on what the website should do for the business, what it should communicate, or what it should make people feel. So most outcomes become presence without purpose. From Narrative Ownership to Execution Focus This was not always the case. Two decades ago, functions like Corporate Communications played a central role in shaping the narrative. These teams understood language, tone, culture, and business context. They could translate an organisation into a coherent voice. As the digital ecosystem expanded, the role of the corporate website changed. It became the primary public interface of the organisation. It now acts as a hub for information, leadership communication, talent attraction, culture expression, and stakeholder engagement. With this shift, the focus moved toward digital marketing instead of digital communication, along with the push to build scale across channels. This brought speed and reach. But it also shifted attention away from personality, communication, and authenticity. The emphasis moved to distribution and efficiency, without fully addressing the need for a clear and consistent brand voice and visual narrative. Standardization and the Rise of Sameness Around the same time, design practices moved toward standardization. Templates, pre-built systems, and scalable frameworks helped teams move faster, but reduced distinctiveness. Across industries, many corporate websites began to look and sound similar. Layouts, imagery, and messaging followed predictable patterns. Claims around innovation, leadership, and trust became generic. Different organisations with different vision and culture began to project very similar digital identities. This sameness creates a synthetic presence. Not because of technology, but because human factors are missing. Intent, voice, emotion, and culture. A corporate website is not just a set of pages. It is a representation of people, decisions, and organisational thinking. When this layer is absent, even well-designed websites feel assembled. Users are not only looking for information. They are trying to understand the people behind the business, the thinking behind decisions, and the culture that drives action. When these cues are missing, the experience feels impersonal and manufactured. AI and the Possible Return of Human Attention With AI, digital practitioners can move from research to ideation in a much compressed time. Tools like Perplexity AI and NotebookLM can compress weeks of landscape research into hours, surfacing patterns and perspectives that would otherwise demand significant human bandwidth. Claude and similar conversational tools help teams move quickly from a rough brief to a considered narrative framework, testing tone, stress-testing clarity, and iterating on voice before a single page goes live. With emerging layers like Zapier AI and platforms such as Adobe Experience Cloud, workflows are not just orchestrated. Intelligence is increasingly integrated across content and systems. As AI takes over the functional layer, architecture, SEO and AEO scaffolding, and performance optimisation, it returns something the last decade quietly took away. Time to think. Space to be deliberate. The bandwidth to ask not just what this page says, but what this organisation sounds like, and what it should make people feel. In that sense, AI does not deepen the synthetic problem. It creates the conditions to finally solve it. The risk is not that AI will make corporate presence more artificial. The risk is that organisations will use it to produce more of what they were already making, faster, and at greater scale. The opportunity is the opposite. To use reclaimed time with intention. To write and design with conviction. To build a presence that feels like it was made by people who meant it. What Needs to Change The issue is not capability. It is the willingness to be real. Consider a small decision, whether to use real people or default to stock imagery. It seems minor, often driven by budget or timelines, but to a visitor it signals something immediate. Either there are real people here, or the organisation has chosen to mask them. Organisations that show their actual teams signal something simple. They chose to be seen. This is where most corporate digital transformation falls short, not in technology or execution, but in small human decisions that build either trust or distance. Real change begins when decision makers stop treating digital presence as an output and start treating it as an expression. That requires voices from across the organisation, the person closest to the customer, the team that onboards new hires, the leader who echoes the ethos of the organisation. Each carries a part of the organisation’s real voice. When that breadth shapes the digital presence, the result feels inhabited, not assembled. Practitioners have a role here too, to push back on briefs that prioritise speed over substance, and to ask harder questions about tone, culture, and intent before a single wireframe is drawn. As Artificial Intelligence accelerates content production, sameness will increase. More websites will look complete. Fewer will feel real. Corporate digital presence will not improve with more pages, features, or content. It will improve when organisations take ownership of meaning, communicate with clarity, and build trust by design. Until then, most corporate websites will continue to exist. Very few will truly connect. If this reflects where your organisation is, it may be time to relook at how your digital presence is being shaped. At HUDE, we work with leadership teams to move from execution to expression, bringing clarity to narrative, design, and experience so what gets built reflects what the organisation actually stands for. If this resonates, write to: nazim@hudestudio.com and we will set up a conversation.
Designing for Trust in BFSI and Healthcare
Trust is often treated as a communication problem – something to be solved with better messaging, sleek branding or AI chatbots. But in BFSI and Healthcare, that approach doesn’t hold. Trust isn’t claimed; it’s experienced. In these sectors, interactions aren’t casual. A claim, a diagnosis, or a payment carries heavy emotional weight. Users aren’t “exploring options” – they are trying to be certain. THE EROSION CYCLE Most systems are designed to complete a process, not to reduce doubt. When flows prioritize data capture over clarity, we trigger a dangerous chain reaction: Gaps in understanding → Users filling gaps themselves → Guessing → Trust eroding. Think about a typical insurance journey. Technically, nothing is broken. The forms work. The “Submit” button triggers a response. Yet, the user feels uneasy because: The coverage is purchased, but not understood. The claim is initiated, but the path ahead is a black box. Documents are uploaded, but adequacy remains a question mark. The system works, but the experience fails to reassure. THE ANATOMY OF ASSURANCE In high-stakes environments, users aren’t looking for “delight” – they are looking for assurance. Real trust is built on three pillars:1. Clarity: What is happening right now?2. Control: What can I actually do about it?3. Predictability: What exactly happens next? We often see organizations try to “signal” trust through badges and copy. But a clear claims timeline builds more trust than a “We Care” banner. A guided medical report builds more trust than a beautiful UI. Our role as designers isn’t to remove the complexity required by compliance, but to translate it into something actionable. In BFSI and healthcare, users are not looking for delight. They are looking for assurance. In insurance, they buy the hope of support when things go wrong.In healthcare, they trust the system to help them recover.Design cannot change the policy or the diagnosis. But it shapes how both are understood. THE BOTTOM LINE Trust is tested most when things go wrong-a delayed claim or an unexpected medical outcome. These are the moments where transparency and clear reasoning can actually strengthen a relationship rather than shatter it. Trust isn’t a layer you add at the end of a project. It is built (or lost) in the quiet, functional moments of a journey. How is your team designing for certainty in high-stress user journeys? This post has been taken from the Linkedin post by Nazim Iqbal.
Celebrating International Literacy Day !
As we celebrated International Literacy Day on September 8 – it is a time to reflect what literacy means in today’s world. Possibly what semantic language was to literacy two decades ago is now design language. This is especially significant in a multilingual and multicultural country like India. The essence of design as a literacy force in today’s world is rooted in its power to drive cross-cultural communication, creativity, and problem-solving. Design transforms how we engage with information, navigate technology, and connect with each other across diverse cultures and languages. Understanding Design Literacy: Design literacy refers to the ability to understand, interpret, and apply design principles effectively. It’s not just about aesthetics, but also about how design shapes user experience, communication, and problem-solving. Why It Matters for Businesses: Design literacy empowers businesses to create user-centered solutions, communicate more effectively, and foster innovation. It leads to better decision-making and stronger alignment between business goals and user needs. 1. Business Value of Design Literacy Improved Customer Experience: Design-literate businesses prioritize user experience (UX) and customer journey mapping, leading to higher customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Quicker Problem-Solving: Teams that understand design principles are better equipped to address challenges creatively and efficiently, resulting in faster product iterations and market adaptations. Competitive Advantage: Businesses with strong design literacy can differentiate themselves from competitors by building brands and products that resonate with consumers on a deeper level. Increased ROI: Studies show that design-driven companies outperform others in terms of revenue and shareholder returns. For example, design thinking has proven to drive financial success by identifying user pain points early and solving them before products hit the market. 2. Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Better Collaboration Across Teams: When teams from different departments understand a common language of design, they collaborate more effectively. This leads to more innovative ideas and a cohesive product strategy. Breaking Down Silos: Design literacy helps bridge the gaps between marketing, product development, and customer service, fostering a unified approach to business challenges. 3. Design Literacy as an Investment Training and Upskilling: Investing in design literacy training programs for employees can yield long-term benefits, from improving product design to increasing operational efficiency. Design Thinking Culture: Embedding a design-thinking culture in the workplace encourages experimentation and places a premium on creativity, enabling companies to adapt to a rapidly changing business landscape. 4. Impact on Brand Perception Building Trust Through Design: Consumers are more likely to trust and engage with brands that have a strong design language. A company with poor design might be perceived as being outdated or unreliable. Consistency in Visual Communication: Design literacy ensures that every touchpoint—whether digital or physical—is consistent, reinforcing brand identity and clarity in messaging. 5. Building Businesses for the Future Promoting design literacy not only benefits businesses but also equips future generations to approach problems with creativity and critical thinking, shaping innovative and future-ready industries.
The HUDE Experience: Interning with us
Among the many things we like to do at HUDE, mentoring budding professionals is a big one. We believe that the knowledge we have collectively gained through our journey is meant to be shared and passed on to upcoming ‘human’ designers, the next generation of talent. And undeniably, it is an amazingly enriching experience! We all learn in the most enjoyable way, while evolving efficient ways of working and adding value to brands and businesses. Some words from two bright and energetic interns, who were with us recently: “My time at Hude Studio was a transformative experience, offering me more than just a job. It became a guiding force, shaping my mindset and fostering a fresh approach to thinking. The journey was marked by continuous learning, making it a crucial chapter in my personal and professional development. Engaging in tasks like creating logos, social media posts, and actively contributing to a live client project provided valuable exposure. Along with the logo I also worked on creating emailers. Additionally, I took on the creative challenge of translating a blog post about the company’s services into a comic, enhancing understanding and communication through visual storytelling.” “My internship at HUDE Studio as a User Experience and Interface Designer was a remarkable experience. Having learnt the theories and laws during my master’s program, I was eager to apply them in real-world projects. HUDE not only provided me with the opportunity to do so but also exposed me to industry-standard designs. The communication within the team was seamless, and I was quickly integrated into the team and company. This valuable experience has significantly propelled my design career, and I am grateful for the opportunities and insights gained during my time at HUDE Studio.” Early-career designers, graduate students who wish to intern with us – go on, call us. A conversation is the first step to a fruitful engagement, and more journeys.
How our mother tongue shapes our emotional expression
Languages and cultures have long fascinated me. The ways different languages employ different phrasing to convey same human feelings has always stoked my imagination. It is a reflection of human diversity. It also outlines the ability of the human mind to bring a range of perspectives to the same emotional moment. I have long believed that humans should achieve emotionally critical command over at least one language, especially to the point where they can communicate their emotions with ease. I have observed that the inability of a person to express and communicate his true feelings creates imbalance in the emotional framework of the person. This is something I have continued to observe across cultures and ages. Those who have evolved a good command over one or more languages and are able to communicate his mind, come across as more self-assured and emotionally grounded. Lake of Emotions Learning one’s mother or father tongue is the simplest and most natural path to build command over expressing feelings early on in life. Learning the parents’ language plugs a child into the spectrum of emotions, expressions and engagements – a spectrum richly colored by journeys, experiences and feelings across generations. This lake of emotions is a pool of feelings that has flowered and withered in different stages of their parents’ lives. It is a whole universe of connectedness, belonging and emotional bonding. The emotional universe of a mother’s language is possibly the most natural way for a growing human to give linguistic shape to his mind and body sensations, enabling the person to give it roots by borrowing from the richness of the shared culture. More often than not, however, when these young people embark on their quest to acquire a language that is globally competitive (a language other than their mother tongue), they do not have access to the lake of emotional expressions, the immersive milieu or social setup in which micro-interactions and micro-expressions take place. Read the complete article at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-native-language-shape-emotional-framework-humans-nazim-iqbal-1c6ic%3FtrackingId=oebWGkkgTxqH2bI5DlMWQQ%253D%253D/?trackingId=oebWGkkgTxqH2bI5DlMWQQ%3D%3D
ChatGPT reduced abilities inequality
According to an ongoing research study by Shakked Noy & Whitney Zhang from MIT, ChatGPT as an AI language model, is fast evolving to have an impact on business productivity. The study conducted in the context of mid-level professional writing tasks have some interesting findings Increase productivity by 59%, with time taken decreases and output quality rises You can read the full working paper On a side note, Chegg became possibly the first company feeling the impact of generative AI. Founded in 2005, Chegg is an education technology company that provides homework help as a service, as well as digital and physical textbook rentals. The stock of EdTech Chegg dived -50% in the last two months as the CEO admits that OpenAI’s viral chatbot ChatGPT is having a direct impact on their business. Read the full story here
Will AI propel the Bard in us
Image generated by DALL-E Earlier today Google released Bard – a Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven tool that will blend the capability of search engine and felicity of human conversation. Bard immediately reminded me of William Shakespeare. Literary ‘bard’ means a tribal poet-singer skilled in composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds. Year 2023 has started with a spate of AI releases. Interesting is not just the release of the AI tools, but what we are experiencing is Consumerization of AI. The fast adoption by consumers of the AI tools is driven by both human curiosity in AI as well as the high degree of humane quotient that these tools are being built with. ChatGBT, supposedly the most powerful AI tool publicly available was launched by Open AI towards the end of November 2023 and now has an active user base of 100 millions. Other popular AI tools like DALL.E and MidJourney already have a million users. There are other tools being adopted like GFN-GAN (image restoration), Notion.ai (copywriting), Copy.ai (copywriting), JADBio — AutoML (knowledge extraction), Lumen5 (video creation), Lalal.ai (audio stem editor), Deep beat (lyrics writing), Deep Nostalgia (animate humans in a photos) and Generative Engine (image created from text description). All of this is possible because of the incremental work done over the last decade in the field of natural language generation, speech recognition, image reading, virtual agents, biometrics, machine learning, robotic process automation, peer-to-peer network and deep learning platforms. The scorching pace and pressure on the technology organisations to put AI in the public space carries the risk of overriding or overlooking the potential impact of these tools on individuals, classrooms, teams and society. Though some research on the wider impact of AI is being carried out, it is largely by the teams who are developing these tools. There is a need for independent groups and organizations of ethicists, racist specialists, culture competency experts and policy researchers to bring greater mind-space and investigation to better understand the impact of these AI tools on the education ecosystem, shaping of human consciousness especially of the younger generation and the society at large. Age of Bardization is a work of speculative fiction written by Albert Waldo Howard under the pseudonym “M. Auberré Hovorré.” The book was a part of a utopian and dystopian literary wave that spawned in the final decades of nineteen century and carried the attributes of speculative human future and altered reality and appealed to the readers. Though such work whether in fiction or AI provide insights on the possible directions for humans. We as a human community need to be aware that we stay clear from metamorphosing into a society of bards and chatbots.
Why financial & banking sectors need human touch more than others: Part 2
In Part 1 of this article series which you can read here, I mentioned how an organisation or brand makes the customer feel is central to their long-term relationship. In that sense, each interaction should be seen and designed as a conversation. Financial institutions should invest to ensure that digital touch points are designed as conversations – real and human. Which means banking digital transformation needs not just technology, but a design which can infuse human feeling in clicks and bring conversational warmth to every interaction. Designing the organisational voice and role of the AI In the branch and people led banking, every bank had a voice and a unique human touch. This enabled a customer to distinguish, and bond with the bank. In the same way, central to humanising digital interactions is a ‘voice’, both in the literal and figurative sense. A voice that customers can relate with, and one that can be used to weave conversations across digital interfaces, social messages, automated teller machines and live agents. This goes a long way to establish the feeling that there is a real human behind every interface and social message. To the customer, it communicates warmth, builds trust and makes the institution approachable. Soon Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a key role in bridging this gap between the digital and human, and can be trusted to bring human tonality to each organisation’s digital ‘voice’. In that sense, chat bots will need to be much more than new-age emails. Chatbot conversations should be designed to respond to human fallacy and feelings. Today most chat bots are deployed as functional forms and do not really provision for human conversation. The focus needs to now evolve and expand to include emotions, feelings and building conversation layers that engage in some depth. Chat bots, as the name itself indicates, are less about drag and drop features and more about designing human engagements and responding to human curiosity and interests. The way communication unfolds shapes the understanding and confidence of people, while also influencing their feelings and future actions. Putting people at the centre and humanism in the system In a country like India, a good number of customers are still uncomfortable with the process of opening a new account with a chat bot or online form. A voice-led journey, video-based chat or the ability to call an agent from live chat brings a personal reassurance. These are not elements to be plugged in and plugged out. On the other hand, these should be bricks with which financial organisations fundamentally design their content and user engagements. Or like in the branch-led banking relationship, a broad conversation base approach should be adopted. This can be enabled by AI and should be leveraged to map the customer’s current financial state, future financial plans and desires. This will enable banks and financial organisations to design personalized financial solutions that align with customers’ life-goals and aspirations. The future demands that business-as-usual cannot continue, and organisations have to look beyond just serving customers and maximizing profit. To build a sustainable business, organisations need to scope for giving back to people and society. For a start, designing transactions as humanized interactions and additionally, provisioning for conversations, privacy, safety, integrity and occasional emotional ennui is a way to give back to society. This will earn businesses trust, spread the feel-good with word-of-month and also inspire pride in their employees. Financial institutions that are looking to bloom in future, should evolve from designing financial products to offering solutions that fit customer life goals. As the pandemic rages on, customers are increasingly becoming demanding and getting primed for remote and AI-enabled experiences – reassurance of human warmth, trust and a warm human voice. Also read Part 1 of this article. Published on 30 March 2022.
Evolution of human digital needs
Human needs are ever expanding! The war is turning out to be a conundrum not just for me, but I believe for many others as well. The virus and the lock down over the last two years had forced humans to soul search. There was greater ‘human-ness’ businesses and organisations started to bring to the world. Globally, there was greater thrust for a cleaner, more sustainable and more humane way of doing business. But the war has come right when the world is still recoiling from the after-effects of COVID-19. It has driven a wedge in the collective human soul. The pandemic accelerated digital adoption, and the war will further accentuate it. The need to be digitally astute and accessible now cuts across sectors, and is seen as a basic attribute of organisations. But most significant is that, human consciousness has started to occupy space in the digital verse of products, platforms and organisations. The COVID-19 acceleration During Covid-19, humans in today’s digitally-enabled society were forced to spend most of their time in the digital verse: watching films and news, socially connecting with new people, having conversations and ordering food and health services. During the last two years, digital has become a human companion like nothing before. Enabling needs fulfilment, providing access to emotional succour, instilling a sense of belonging and providing confidence of existence. In a way, the evolution of this platonic relationship provided the impetus for the metaverse to come into being. In fact, human behaviour during the pandemic is a sort of a window to the future of human digital needs. Demonstrating as it does over the last two years, about how organisations will be forced to respond, evolve and expand to serve the growing needs of humans. Digital now offers spirituality moorings In the early days, digital was about fulfilling human functional needs like process requests and status updates, communication over email, and having discreet conversations. But soon the digital verse expanded to have social networks and the whole matrix of social bonding, belonging and myriad emotions came in. Brands now need to occupy the digital sweet spot, that fuzzy space at the confluence of functional, emotional and ethical needs of the 21st century human The emotional matrix provided the bedrock for humans to start looking for spiritual mooring in the digital ecosystems. Trust, intentions, responsibilities, values, promises, and behaviour began to matter – not just of humans in positions of influence, but of entire organisations. No longer is it sufficient for designated people to contain themselves to fulfilling defined functional roles and for organisations to respond to brand-centric needs. All are now expected to be more human and put forth their feelings and come forth with their moral outlook. For the digital fraternity, the thought cloud about inclusivity and diversity was settling down and the awareness about ethics and sustainability was building in the digital consciousness. Unfortunately, the war threatens to undo the progress. It is a threat that could stall the humanising of digital, with the conflict pushing a dehumanising narrative, what with fake news and data privacy breaches becoming unavoidable. Published on 15 March 2022.
Rise of the Human-Centered Design
Over the last few years, we have made huge progress in adoption of design by businesses, brands, and in the civic space. But even now when I head into meeting with key stakeholders in evolved corporate organisations or government departments looking to bring ease of use to their technology stacks, I encounter prejudices and hand-me-down assumptions. One of which is the random use and ambidextrous clubbing of UX & UI. Whether it is UX & UI or UI & UX, the pairing has caught everybody’s imagination who is looking walk the digital path. So, whether it is the CTO, CPO or CDO looking to bring an ounce of user friendliness to their products or wanting to improve accessibility of their technology stack for humans – they somehow evolve a notion that all of it is a UX & UI ride. UI is a small sub-set of the UX. UX is the experience layer of the product which combines, in varying degrees, copy writing, interaction design, visual design, iconography, motion design, and in many cases, voice and audio design. The world of experience is much wider and deeper both at the organisation, product or service level. It requires not just digital and design acumen, but a collective human perspective of emotions, ethics, human behaviour and a large dose of measured maturity. Such holistic thinking and approach build design experiences that are inclusive and accommodate diversity of human inanities, fallacies, and cultural dichotomy. We are now at an inflection in the digital evolution, and for design to be really impactful, it has to step out from the realm of designers and get into the hands of developers, engineers, project managers, marketers, technologists, civil administrators, government service providers and possibly also the users of the product or services. Which brings up the question: what would designer do, if everybody is a designer. Designers need to step up and be mentors, coaches, assimilators and the tribe that can help connect the dots. It is collectively that we can build experiences that carry diversity of perspective, yet are inclusive in their embrace and need fulfilment. We at HUDE Studio call it Human Experience (HX).
