The VenNexis Design System Map
Design is a system of thought.
Thirty-five disciplines, four domains, one north star. Most studios sell you a list of services. This is the map underneath them: what depends on what, and in which order it pays to move.
Eleven of the thirty-five are packaged as services. The rest we do inside engagements. Either way, the order matters more than the list.
Open the mapStart at the north star
Four domains, one connected system.
- 01Pick your stage to see the order of moves
- 02Select any node for detail and what to do next
- 03Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom
VenNexis · Design Operations
The map, as a list.
The same thirty-five disciplines, in reading order. Choose your stage to see the sequence, and what to defer.
You are not scaling anything yet. You are finding out whether there is anything worth scaling.
Order of execution · 8 moves
- 01
User Research
Talk to twenty people before you build for one.
Delivered as Customer Intelligence Research → - 02
Prototyping & Validation
Be wrong on paper, where being wrong is cheap.
Delivered as Hypothesis Testing Sprint → - 03
Inclusive Design
Build the basics in now. Retrofitting costs ten times more.
- 04
- 05
UX Design
Give the tested idea a structure people can follow.
- 06
Content Design
Name things plainly. Confused users churn silently.
- 07
UI Design
Make it legible enough to demo, sell and raise on.
- 08
Brand Design
The raise is the product right now. Position accordingly.
Delivered as Brand & Marketing Design →
Next horizon · 9
Data & Insight
Too few users for the numbers to mean anything yet. Instrument now, analyse later.
Interaction & Motion
Motion is polish. Polish before fit is money burned.
Design Strategy
You cannot sequence a roadmap you have not validated.
Marketing & Growth
Founder-led selling outperforms paid channels at this size.
Customer Experience Design
One channel, one small team. There is no service to design yet.
Design Systems
Nothing is repeated often enough yet to be worth standardising.
Process & Delivery
Process overhead on a team of three slows you down.
Team & Collaboration
You are the team. Structure comes with the second designer.
Measurement & Impact
Measure outcomes once there is a baseline worth moving.
Something works. Now prove it works reliably, for more people, without the founders in the room.
Order of execution · 14 moves
- 01
Data & Insight
You finally have enough traffic for numbers to mean something.
- 02
User Research
Re-run discovery. Your seed-stage assumptions have expired.
Delivered as Customer Intelligence Research → - 03
Prototyping & Validation
Test the risky bets. Ship the settled ones.
Delivered as Hypothesis Testing Sprint → - 04
Inclusive Design
Enterprise buyers will ask for conformance. Be ready.
- 05
- 06
UX Design
Fix the flows that quietly leak your funnel.
- 07
Content Design
Rewrite the words that generate support tickets.
- 08
UI Design
Raise the finish level to match the price you charge.
- 09
Interaction & Motion
Use motion to explain state, not to decorate it.
- 10
- 11
Brand Design
Now brand compounds, because there is something real behind it.
Delivered as Brand & Marketing Design → - 12
Marketing & Growth
Activation first. Paid spend on a leaky funnel just costs more.
Delivered as Brand & Marketing Design → - 13
Customer Experience Design
Map the journey before support volume defines it for you.
- 14
Design Systems
Start the system once you are repeating yourself, not before.
Delivered as Design Systems →
Next horizon · 3
Process & Delivery
Formal ops before a system to operate is process for its own sake.
Team & Collaboration
Structure follows the system. Get the system stable first.
Measurement & Impact
Worth starting informally. Formal attribution can wait a quarter.
The constraint has moved. You are no longer short of ideas. You are short of a way to deliver them repeatedly.
Order of execution · 17 moves
- 01
- 02
Process & Delivery
Make delivery predictable before you add more people.
- 03
Team & Collaboration
Design the team topology, or it will design itself badly.
- 04
Measurement & Impact
Instrument the delivery process, not just the product.
Delivered as Growth Experience Audit → - 05
Product Design
Coordinate across squads instead of optimising in silos.
Delivered as Product Design → - 06
UX Design
Audit for the drift that always creeps in at scale.
- 07
UI Design
Retire one-off screens into governed components.
- 08
Content Design
Enforce one vocabulary across every surface.
- 09
Interaction & Motion
Codify motion so every team animates the same way.
- 10
Design Strategy
One roadmap, multiple teams, fewer collisions.
Delivered as Product Strategy & Growth → - 11
- 12
Marketing & Growth
Shift from campaigns to compounding growth loops.
Delivered as Brand & Marketing Design → - 13
Customer Experience Design
Now the support load justifies designing the whole service.
- 14
User Research
Move from ad-hoc studies to a continuous research cadence.
Delivered as Customer Intelligence Research → - 15
Data & Insight
Unify measurement so squads argue from the same numbers.
- 16
Prototyping & Validation
Validate at the seam between teams, where things break.
Delivered as Hypothesis Testing Sprint → - 17
Inclusive Design
Move from remediation to prevention in the pipeline.
The full system is in play. What changes is not which disciplines you use, but the order and the governance around them.
Order of execution · 17 moves
- 01
Design Strategy
Set direction across a portfolio, not a product.
Delivered as Product Strategy & Growth → - 02
Brand Design
Hold one brand across many products and geographies.
Delivered as Brand & Marketing Design → - 03
Marketing & Growth
Coordinate demand across business units and regions.
Delivered as Brand & Marketing Design → - 04
Customer Experience Design
The whole service is the product now, not the app.
- 05
- 06
Process & Delivery
Governance first. At this size, coordination is the constraint.
- 07
Team & Collaboration
Build a design function, not a collection of designers.
- 08
Measurement & Impact
Tie every design investment to a stated commercial case.
Delivered as Growth Experience Audit → - 09
- 10
UX Design
Attack the legacy flows nobody has owned for years.
- 11
UI Design
Consolidate a decade of divergent interfaces.
- 12
Content Design
One terminology model across every touchpoint and region.
- 13
Interaction & Motion
Consistent motion signals a single, coherent organisation.
- 14
User Research
Build a research function, not a research project.
Delivered as Customer Intelligence Research → - 15
Data & Insight
Unify measurement across business units.
- 16
Prototyping & Validation
De-risk migrations before committing capital.
Delivered as Hypothesis Testing Sprint → - 17
Inclusive Design
Meet regulatory obligation and widen the market at once.
The full system · 35 disciplines
Human-Centred Design
- User Research · Customer Intelligence Research
- Data & Insight
- Prototyping & Validation · Hypothesis Testing Sprint
- Inclusive Design
Product & Experience
- Product Design · Product Design
- UX Design
- UI Design
- Content Design
- Interaction & Motion
Go-to-Market
- Design Strategy · Product Strategy & Growth
- Brand Design · Brand & Marketing Design
- Brand Positioning
- Brand Identity
- Marketing & Growth · Brand & Marketing Design
- Acquisition
- Activation
- Performance Marketing
- Social & Content
- Retention & Referral
- Customer Experience Design
- Service Design
- Journey & Touchpoints
Design Operations
- Design Systems · Design Systems
- Process & Delivery
- Team & Collaboration
- Measurement & Impact · Growth Experience Audit
This is the accessible view of the map. On a desktop browser it renders as an interactive 3D model. Both carry the same content.
Where to go from here
The map shows the order. We deliver the moves.
Eleven of the thirty-five disciplines are packaged as services today. The rest we do inside engagements rather than sell separately.
Not sure where you are on the map
Growth Experience Audit
Ten working days, fixed scope. We place you on the map and tell you which three moves matter this quarter.
Start hereYou know the move you need
All services
Two fixed-price entry products, three core engagements, five specialisms and a partner track for agencies.
See servicesYou would rather talk it through
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Thirty minutes with a senior designer, not a salesperson. Proposal back within 48 hours.
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