The art of digital feeling
The case for a more thoughtful internet, and why we need to make technology feel again
I recently moved to Manly.
My commute to the Nightjar studio used to be a 10min walk. Now, it's just over an hour on two modes of transport. And while I'm all for the theory of 10-Min cities, I'm not hating on this new journey of mine. It affords me plenty of time for one of my favourite activities - people watching.
No prizes for guessing what people are doing while they ride the ferry or catch the bus. Or even powerwalk through Martin Place. They are on their phones. Absolutely poring over their phones. Hunched-and-eyeballs-falling-out-of-their-heads over their phones. Watching sport. Scrolling Instagram. Consuming TikTok. Online shopping (ahem). Writing, and then rewriting emails more politely the second time around. Gambling. CandyCrush 2.0. Wordle. Wordle imitations. I’ve also sat behind someone watching something definitely NSFB. (Not Safe For the Bus.) And most of it makes me, perhaps irrationally, perhaps overreacting-ly, really really mad.
Why am I so angry? Part of it may be that I am skirting very close to middle age and middle aged people like to get angry about things. But part of it is that the majority of online usage is garbage.
True, I don’t know what every single person is doing on their phone. Some may be penning the next great Australian novel. Or using ChatGPT to cure cancer. And it’s very handy to be able to conduct work matters from the palm of your hand when the morning hasn’t gone to plan and you’re still on the (now long) commute from God’s Country. I also once sat behind a software engineer who was on his laptop doing what looked like fixing prompts for the failed Vivid Sydney drone show the night before.
Sadly though, the great majority of online life is conducted on subpar websites, with terrible user experiences, delivering brain rotting stuff. Overhyping our brains and decreasing our intellect.
The Internet used to be a novelty, a fun place. A place that was an escape from the real world, but not the whole world. But now, so much, too much perhaps, of our lives are online. And nowhere is it more painfully obvious than on a commute.
We have tried to ban young people from social media (and social media is its own Pandora's Box here which I will not go into). People buy dumb phones or pay large amounts of money for software that turns off your apps. But what if the answer was just bringing back a more deliberate internet? One where digital experiences are crafted to make people feel? To elicit emotions other than click-bait driven rage or capitalist consumer frenzy?
It's particularly important for categories like travel, hospitality, and wellness. You want to tease just the right amount of feeling - through imagery, interactions, UI decisions, motion treatments - for the person on the other end to be engaged, and inched down the funnel.
When you are the owner or manager of a luxury brand that exists in the real world, your online experience has the opportunity to act as a precursor for your customer. It should elicit all the brand cues that your product or service does IRL. Boutique hotel? Bespoke digital platform that showcases the charm and characteristics of the property while gently beckoning you to consider a stay. Fine dining restaurant? Custom site that evokes the warmth, energy and hospitality of your venue before guests even walk through the door. Hospitality brand’s customers are spending big to experience their hotels, wellness retreats, restaurants - so the online experience needs to be representative and respectful of this fact. No consumer wants a beer experience for their champagne budget. In an adjacent note, this also speaks to the importance of brand consistency across all the touchpoints your potential customer may engage with. It’s not rocket science, but it is mind-blowing how often it's overlooked.
Last time I checked, we’re still human, so digital experiences need to be designed with respect for our emotive and instinctive natures. We crave social connection, and of course no article would be complete without the mention of AI, so for the record, in 2026, there is still an element of human connection that AI generated design just cannot fake.
People make judgements really quickly (Am I in the right place? Is this for me? Do I trust this?) based on how they receive the cumulative result of the design and engineering decisions a business has made. Overly optimising for conversion can undermine a luxury brand, and the homepage mood film module can only do so much.
One of the arguments / briefs I find most frustrating is that B2B work should be, well, ‘business’. Shocking as this may be, your B2B customer is also a person. And is likely a person who very much appreciates beautiful ‘B2C’ websites and online experiences, and has discerning taste in the broader occasion of their lives, beyond their role as a trade partner or corporate event planner. Humans are multifaceted (and delightfully contradictory) and an online experience that drives emotion - through arresting copy, content, UX and design - is one that will be remembered. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (thank you, Maya).
I am fortunate that at Nightjar we are all about the craft (and doggedly so). Craft til we die. Revise and rework and re-engineer until it’s perfect. We want to make sure digital is felt. And by felt, I mean a connection beyond the screen. Evoke an emotional reaction. Something considered, something built to last. We were resolute in our formation of the company 9 years ago that we would not contribute to the vastness of digital waste that sadly pollutes the internet. And we can proudly say that we have flown this flag ever since.
But back to where I started, back to the bus. The depressing scene so often unfolding in front of me, of necks craned over and blank stares into the abyss (the screen).
“Look up!” I will scream one day. “Look at the world around you!”. Or at least direct them to some well-designed and well-engineered digital platforms.
Nightjar has helped brands like Armadillo, ZETR and Decor Systems and Love Tilly Group build evocative digital experiences that drive sales and build brand equity.
Disclaimer: 90% of this article was written, hunched over my phone, on the bus. 🙃