Content Branding & Style Guidelines

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Brief Overview

This refers to a standardized process for the WalkMe project team to communicate best practices for WalkMe design and the “art of the possible” for design customizations to internal stakeholders.

Consistent, branded assets fosters end-user trust, reduces content development effort, and helps create streamlined, efficient deployments for your project.

How This Impacts Your Program

✅ Benefits of operationalizing

• Reduce time-to-delivery for future net new projects and WalkMe items 
• Build trust with end-users through a consistent brand experience 
• Eliminate decision fatigue – standardize early 

❌ Risks of not operationalizing

• Lack of end-user trust 
• Unsanctioned styles being created without oversight 

Design approach by software type

Design approach can differ depending on the end-user audience of your software. 

Internal-facing application

• Users: Employees & contractors (EX)
• WalkMe Design Recommended: Adheres to company branding and styling guidelines
• Consideration: Determine if there is a way to opt out of the standard design. If so, what are the reasons and approvals pathways?
  • The most common reason for opt-out is a design clash (for example, blue WalkMe balloons on a blue application background)
  • The Digital Adoption Team needs to agree on an alternate approach

• Cross-functional Needs: Not commonly needed

External-facing application

• Users: Customers or public facing (CX)
• WalkMe Design Recommended: Adheres to application branding and styling guidelines
• Considerations: Designate the application design owners as the main stakeholders in the design template creation and approval
  • In addition, determine the copywriting “voice” that needs to be adhered to
  • This may require partnership with leadership from your Technical Writing team
  • See materials the Digital Adoption Team can bring for easy collaboration and dialogue

• Cross-functional Needs: UX, Design or Marketing

When This is Relevant 

The Project Lead should communicate design expectations to stakeholders during the Kickoff and Discovery stages of an implementation. 

Example language for the Digital Adoption Team to use with your stakeholders: 

“[Company] has a standard CSS format that is used across all apps in the enterprise. The design standard is easily deployed, scalable, and matches [Company] brand requirements. The standard design will be applied to your Editor upon creation.” 

• Include screenshots of sample WalkMe balloons, the Menu, or any design ideas

Navigating a Localized Design Consult

Asking the following questions allows the Digital Adoption Team to gather critical information and set expectations with stakeholders on what it means to have a custom, local design.

• Global design is easiest for scaling and maintenance 
  • For the Digital Adoption Team: Does your stakeholder have someone to handle upkeep if changes are needed?
• Changing visual elements (via CSS) is the easiest/lowest level of effort for custom design, while changing HTML takes time/development work. In general, removing design aspects from WalkMe’s templates requires less effort than adding new design aspects. 
  • For the Digital Adoption Team: Is your stakeholder prepared to absorb adjustments to a project timeline if needed, to accommodate additional time needed for adding design aspects to templates? 
• If a design deviates significantly from the existing HTML structure, it may introduce fragility and risk.
  • For the Digital Adoption Team: Does your stakeholder have someone to handle upkeep if changes are needed? Is this a high-visibility item that would cause significant distress if it was broken? 
• Accessibility standards are important 
  • For the Digital Adoption Team: Does your organization require UI elements follow strict accessibility standards?  Ex. color contrast, keyboard accessibility, etc. 

Get Started

The following are primary WalkMe tools that help you manage branding and style guidelines at scale. 

• Design & Customization Support – A list of articles, guides, and videos covering everything from CSS to custom asset uploads 
• WalkMe Digital Adoption Institute: CSS with WalkMe – A short course on the basics of CSS customization with WalkMe
• WalkMe Brand Guidelines – An example of company brand guidelines – use yours as a starting point to customize your WalkMe assets 
• WalkMe Design Services – Speak to your primary WalkMe contact to explore a design package