Today, I received an email from rule.fm, a new project management tool that I was turned onto by a friend. In the email, rule.fm asked me to upgrade to the pro version of their software – free if done in July. The issue? I’d already upgraded. In fact, the email itself was quite telling, saying this: “If you activated earlier this July you’re already good to go.”

While this isn’t a big deal, rule.fm missed out on an opportunity to deliver a stellar experience, although, it probably isn’t completely their fault.

So, what could rule.fm done differently, and what can we learn from it?

What rule.fm failed to deliver on was a successful cross-channel experience design. In a cross-channel experience, users are interacting with a company through multiple – you guessed it – channels. These channels may be retail, email, phone, signage, mail, etc. Generally, our interactions with most companies are somewhat cross channel.

Unfortunately, in a cross-channel experience like this, there are tons of opportunities for the user’s experience to break down. Mostly, this is due to ineffective (or non-existent) communication between the channels.

In the rule.fm example, this breakdown occurs between the website and email channels. Had things been designed with this cross-channel existence in mind, I’d have never received an email asking me to register for the pro version of the software. Having already been a registered member, the website and database would have instructed the email campaign to either ignore my email address for this send, or send me a different message (one with a possible upsell, etc.)

In short – effective cross-channel design recognizes that a user is a singular entity that exists across multiple channels, and adapts the experience for that user accordingly.

What APIs have to do with it

The really unfortunate part of this story is that rule.fm may not have been able to do anything about it. It’s possible (and even probable) that establishing a link between the website and its databases and the email campaign tool isn’t possible. That’s where APIs become important. APIs allow services to share information with one another through a standard interface. With better APIs comes easier cross-channel communication, and an easier time designing for these scenarios.

We’ve come a long way with APIs over the past decade. More and more services offer easy APIs for developers to use, but we’ve still got some work to do. As a former developer, I appreciate the complexity and cost associated with developing and implementing APIs. However, a more robust API framework across services is one of the major linchpins in designing effective cross-channel experiences.

This doesn’t just go for online software. In the retail world, strong API layers for point-of-sale systems would unlock enormous potential with regards to designing better retail-to-web experiences. In the automotive world, APIs into car computers would allow users to manage their vehicle across various platforms and devices, exposing huge opportunities for innovation.

I’m not naive – I realize that cost isn’t the only barrier to API development. Major technical limitations, competitive tactics and an unclear value proposition for the manufacturer also drive the lack of widespread API development, particularly with regards to device manufacturers. My hope is that as great user experiences become more central to product development and more critical in terms of competitive advantage, we’ll see more and more API development, and more attention paid (in the design world) to the design of these cross-channel experiences.

Are you a developer? If so, what prevents you from developing APIs for your software and encouraging their use? If you’re a designer, do you resonate with this challenge in designing better experiences? What can the design community do to help advance this type of work?