Most design failures aren't visual. They're structural — three teams solving the same problem separately, a vendor shipping a vision no one wrote down, an AI assistant that doesn't know what the website already told the customer.
McClinton Design & Strategy exists to fix the structure, not just the screens — providing context, not control: documented systems, governed decisions, and reusable patterns built for the teams who run the platform after the engagement ends.
Eight disciplines, one governing logic.
Each engagement draws from the same core methodology — sourced discovery, documented architecture, and governance rigorous enough to clear real risk sign-off.
Experience Ecosystem Architecture
Mapping every surface a client operates — web, app, in-store, AI assistants — and architecting one coherent system underneath, with explicit rules for where surfaces are allowed to diverge.
Product Design
Hands-on interface design — screens, flows, and interaction patterns for experiences headed to production, not just the architecture underneath them.
Cross-Channel Service Blueprinting
Extending the customer journey into the back-stage systems and human processes behind it — every handoff point mapped, every failure path accounted for.
Design Systems Governance
Proposal processes, review cadence, and exception paths that keep a system coherent over time — documented at a level of rigor that can support real risk sign-off.
Agentic Workflow Blueprinting
Mapping decision boundaries and escalation triggers for AI-driven experiences — where a system should act autonomously, and where it hands off to a human.
Vendor & Delivery Governance
Holding implementation vendors accountable to a documented vision — closing the gap between what was designed and what actually ships.
DesignOps at Scale
Rolling a governed system out across multiple teams and a large operational footprint, without becoming a personal bottleneck.
Fractional Digital Leadership
Ongoing, executive-level counsel on a monthly retainer across digital strategy, customer experience, data and AI tooling, and culture change.
Real outcomes, not adjectives.
Every engagement is judged by what actually shipped — not how the deck looked.
Telecommunications · Ecommerce & Subscription Commerce · Financial Services & Payments · Healthcare · Aerospace · Insurance · Manufacturing
A four-phase methodology, not a one-off sprint.
Discovery
Sourced interviews, existing data, and a Concept Brief the whole engagement traces back to.
Architecture
Ecosystem mapping, journey mapping, and service blueprinting — the whole system, not one screen.
Governance
A framework rigorous enough to hold up when a vendor pushes back or a team wants an exception.
Scale
Rollout across teams, adoption tracked, and a named internal owner before the engagement ends.
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