McDonald’s flagship store in Chicago experienced a digital design transformation that undermines the brand’s hard-won equities in human connection, happy families and trust with a cool, detached world of machines. Is it a brand repositioning or a design flaw?

The chilling effects of digital transformation on the brand experience are evident across categories, but they are not inevitable, and the solution lies in human-centered design thinking, not analytics. Our semiotic methods, such as the binary analysis and semiotic square, operate at the level of the meanings, cognitive operations and spatial cues that shape consumer experiences. We can help you integrate the efficiency and modernity of your digital transformation with the human factors that drew customers to the brand in the first place.