I design

visuals experiences digital products processes services .

I bring Stories to live.

Last week, I was briefed on a website redesign. Beyond creating a fresh visual language, one key task was tackling content and structure for the website. Sounds somewhat straightforward, right? Well, not quite.

The client has a beautifully crafted ‘meet and greet’ pitch deck – polished, structured, and perfect for an in-person presentation. Their idea? Drop it straight onto the website and we’re done. I’ve heard that a few times, before but unfortunately this is not how it works.

A pitch deck is designed for a guided, linear storytelling experience, one where the audience follows along as the story unfolds. A website? That’s an entirely different beast. Visitors dive in at different points, explore on their own terms, and piece together their own journey. Content, and the way we structure it, needs to reflect that.

Nothing revolutionary here as this conversation has probably happened a hundred times before. But I figured it’s still worth sharing, since understanding this distinction can make or break how we communicate online.

So, please follow me through a short (and by no means complete) breakdown of what we might need to consider.

As Simon Sinek famously defined, a great story starts with WHY: why we do what we do. Then comes HOW: the approach, the values, the craft. Followed by WHAT: the tangible offering, the product, or service.

I’ve always liked to add one more: WHO. Because, as we know, behind every great story are the people who bring it to life. When we tell stories – whether in person (in a pitch for our example) or on a website – it’s not just about a framework. It’s about making the message resonate. And that means remembering WHO is at the heart of it all.

So now that we have that overarching framework, let’s see how it applies to the two different approaches.

Let’s start with the Guided Experience. That’s the one where we tell the story directly; where we take the audience by the hand, leading them through a structured narrative. Our pitch deck, for example. We are, in some ways, in control of the pacing, the flow, and the key moments of engagement. It’s intentional, designed for impact, and ensures the message lands exactly as we want it to.

As you can see in the flow chart below, in this approach, we guide our audience through a structured journey. A journey with a clear beginning, a defined path, and a purposeful ending. Every step is intentional, ensuring the story unfolds in a way that resonates, informs, and engages. Unlike an open-ended exploration, this format allows us to interact with our audience in real-time, gauge their reactions, and adapt accordingly, if needed – maybe that means adjusting our tone, or diving deeper into a particular topic, or addressing specific questions as they arise. The result? A dynamic, responsive experience that still follows a carefully curated structure.

Think of it as a well-composed timeline, with moments that matter and each moment builds upon the last:

A start – our audience steps in at a defined entry point
Knowing what to expect, they are prepared to engage with a structured narrative.

WHY we do what we do
We set the stage with purpose: what drives us, our mission, and our bigger picture.

HOW we do it
Here, we break down our approach, explain our frameworks, methods, processes, and techniques – they all can be tailored to the audience we’re speaking to.

WHAT we offer
Whether it’s a project, a service, or a product, this is where we showcase specific examples relevant to our audience.

WHO brings it to life
We introduce key team members to create a more personal connection.

An end – our audience steps out at a clear, guided endpoint
The experience comes to a purposeful close, leading seamlessly into the next steps.

But that’s just one side of the equation. What happens when there’s no set path, no narrator leading the way? That’s where Open Exploration comes in. Let’s see how that might unfold…

As we can see in this flow chart and unlike the guided experience, this approach has no fixed entry point, no set path, and no clear endpoint. The audience steps in and out at any moment, choosing their own journey. There’s no narrator leading the way, instead just content scattered across multiple touchpoints, waiting to be explored. A website would be a perfect example for this.

Instead of a structured timeline, our users navigate a web of possibilities, where entry points are unpredictable and no two journeys look the same. For example:

• Some might land on a deep-dive case study before even knowing why we exist.
• Others might explore our methods before understanding what we actually do.
• Many will enter through an external link, interact briefly, and leave without ever seeing the full picture.

Users loop between why, how, what, and who, often in no particular order. There is no fixed path and no predefined sequence. Instead, there are just options, links, snippets of information and fragmented interactions, each one designed to draw the user in and spark curiosity.

This isn’t storytelling in the traditional sense. It is more like, well, let’s call it story-finding. The audience pieces it together on their own, shaping the experience in ways we can’t fully predict.