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Founder & Managing Director

Steve Piper

Say hello to Faraday, our custom middleware solution to connect your SaaS systems with your website or app. In a world full of software, subscription services, and SaaS products, it’s easy to watch your business&#39;s infrastructure go from zero to 100 overnight. You might use one CRM service here, an ERP there, a stock management system elsewhere, an accounting package somewhere else. Each platform selected carefully to fit the business&#39;s needs. But it can feel like it’s all held together with string.Data duplication across systems, manual re-entry that nobody wants to do. A website that knows less about your customers than your CRM does. Why? Because nobody’s figured out how to connect them all properly.Most businesses accept this kind of friction as ‘normal’. It’s not seen as a solvable problem. The SaaS integration issue isn’t line one on the budget; it’s buried in development hours, support tickets, and the quiet decision not to upgrade a platform because it’ll break the website.This is where <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday fits in</a>. A custom middleware hub that connects your SaaS systems with your website or app for smooth data transfer. No more duplicated data, no more manual re-entry.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again across all sorts of different client projects. <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">SaaS tools that power the business</a>, but they’re stuck in data silos. Or websites hardwired to a single system that held the business back when it was time to evolve and grow.The real cost of those problems goes beyond just development and build time. It’s lost agility, data inconsistencies, and businesses making platform decisions based on what their website or app could handle, rather than what the business actually needs.When clients came to us with problems like this, we used to go away and look at off-the-shelf solutions like Zapier or native API connections, but it always became obvious quickly that these just weren’t up to the job. They’re designed for simple point-to-point integration. They can’t handle the complex, bespoke digital products we were going to connect them to.So, we built our own, totally bespoke solution to this problem. A custom middleware integration that acts like a data hub, connecting all these disparate SaaS products with a <a href="https://sidigital.co/develop">website, or app, or portal</a> for seamless, reliable data flow and workflow automation.It’s this that separates Faraday from off-the-shelf options like Zapier. Built bespoke to connect your digital world completely.This is Faraday.

The origins of Faraday

It all <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover">starts with discovery</a> and asking the questions that matter. “When did you last audit your tech stack?”, “how many places does your team manually re-enter data that already exists somewhere else?”, “how many third-party systems have direct access to your website&#39;s database, and could you list them all right now?”.It’s these questions that tease out the real pain points. And they might be difficult to answer, but it all plays into a comprehensive solution.Once we’ve got a solution everyone is happy with, we begin working out how the data is mapped across different systems and platforms. Customer emails input into the website need mapping across to your CRM, but also your accounting portal. Order numbers need adding to your stock management system and your ERP, but it needs formatting differently. It’s this step that reduces the need for manual re-entry of data across platforms.Then, we begin making the connections. We bring the data through Faraday and out into the respective website, CRM, DAM or ERP in the correct formats and in a way that individual platforms need it. No compromises on data integrity or quality. It just works.

How custom middleware works

Faraday sits between your systems, just like a hub for your computer. It stops systems talking directly to one another and acts as a central dock to control data flows and ensure they go to the correct places every time. It allows all your data points to flow into a central place and back out, keeping your data clean, secure, and up-to-date.And it all works in real-time. No delays. A customer updates their address on your website? That goes straight to your warehouse management system ahead of shipping their order, and to your accounting platform for invoicing.

A lot of our client websites handle sensitive user data, and it can be worrying to let a third-party system manage that data. But even though Faraday is handling the data, it’s working using a centralised connection model. Instead of having dozens of direct API connections, each of which is a potential security vulnerability, Faraday creates a single, GDPR-compliant middleware layer. Fewer entry points mean tighter data control, giving you a secure SaaS integration.Then there’s data access permissions. Faraday is built around your business and your systems, so we work with you and your team to define precisely what each system can see and do with the data. No system gets more access than it needs, helping reduce the risk of data leaks or information being shown to people it shouldn’t be.And if your business is compliance-conscious, Faraday gives you visibility over what data moved where and when, giving you a complete audit trail to work against.For the security-conscious, direct integrations can be a headache. If a data breach occurs in one system, it can quickly cascade across everything connected to it. Your website, your app, your CRM. Everything. So custom middleware can help alleviate those headaches from the get-go.

Security at the core

We’ve been <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">working with Harwin</a>, a global connector manufacturer, to connect their complex Salesforce CRM system with their website. But we didn’t stop there. We also integrated their Bynder DAM to pull through product imagery, TraceParts to display 3D product models, SamacSys for CAD drawings, and a whole host more. And we connected it all together using Faraday.Faraday is ultimately the reason Harwin has seen a 97% increase in filter interaction time. It allows products to pull through faster and more accurately from Salesforce and Bynder, giving users what they want, when they want it.If you’ve got a SaaS set up similar to Harwin and want to connect it with your website or app, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a>.

Harwin, powered by Faraday

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What is custom middleware?</h3>Custom middleware is a layer that sits between two or more systems, allowing them to share data and communicate quickly and easily. Think of it like a translator.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>How is custom middleware different from Zapier or Make?</h3>Off-the-shelf Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) systems like Zapier and Make are built for simple point-to-point integrations and often don’t extend beyond that. Custom middleware is built around your business’s tech stack, handling complex logic, proprietary APIs, and multi-system environments to seamlessly flow data between various SaaS platforms and end points like your website.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>How long does it take to build a middleware integration?</h3>This depends on the complexity of the build and tech stack. But we run a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover">rigorous discovery process</a> to get a full understanding of how your business’s systems are built and work before we write a single line of code. This ensures the architecture is correct from the start.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>How much does it cost to build a custom integration?</h3>Again, this depends on the complexity of the build. As it’s completely custom and bespoke to your business, SaaS integrations using Faraday aren’t a one-cost-fits-all scenario.If you want to discuss your project in more detail, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch with us</a>.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Is my data secure when using middleware?</h3>Yes. Custom middleware is built with security as a core requirement. Data passing through the integration layer is encrypted, access is controlled through authentication protocols, and audit logging provides visibility over every transaction. With Faraday, that also means GDPR compliance is considered by design. So, sensitive data moves between your systems safely and accountably.If your SaaS systems won’t talk to your website or app, we should talk. <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">Get in touch.</a>

FAQs

Technical Account Manager

Andy Mardell

Your company might already have security policies in place, but a quick refresher ensures nothing slips through the cracks. For Data Privacy Day this year, we’re giving you a checklist of security policies you need to keep on top of.

Grab your free checklist. No forms, no faff.

Download our free 8-point security checklist

These are our recommendations for all our clients. Depending on the value and sensitivity of your data, you might want to adjust the frequency to suit your needs.

How to ensure your apps and websites are secure

An annual penetration test from an independent third party identifies weaknesses in your code and server configuration. We always recommend one after completing a website or app build, plus annual reviews or tests following significant code changes. If you need help finding a pentest company, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a>.

1. Get a pentest – Yearly

Check who has admin access to your CMS or back office systems. Do they still need it? Could their permissions be downgraded from Admin to User level?And, every six months, have a spring clean. Review everyone with CMS or back office access. Ask if they still need it. Are their details current? When did they last change their password? If you have a Leaver Policy, add system removal to your off-boarding checklist.

2. Review CMS access – Quarterly

<a href="https://haveibeenpwned.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Have I Been Pwned</a> lets you search data breaches to see if your email or phone number has been compromised. This matters less if you use unique passwords for each account, but if you&#39;ve reused passwords, a quick check here is worth five minutes.

3. Check if you’ve been Pwned – Bi-Yearly

2 Factor Authentication (2FA) requires a randomly generated code from your phone alongside your password. Once you&#39;ve entered your credentials, you&#39;ll need your 2FA app to get the unique access code. Some of our top 2FA apps include <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/mobile-authenticator-app" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Microsoft Authenticator</a>, <a href="https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1066447?hl=en&amp;co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Authenticator</a>, and <a href="https://getaegis.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aegis Authenticator</a>.While you&#39;re at it, check your 2FA app and remove any old devices.

4. Use 2 Factor Authentication

We&#39;ve all reused passwords or used obvious variations like &#39;Sunsh1ne&#39;, &#39;Sunsh2ne&#39;. Password managers eliminate this risk by securely storing your passwords and auto-filling them. They&#39;re built into operating systems like macOS and browsers like Microsoft Edge. At Si digital, we use <a href="https://1password.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">1Password</a>.

5. Use a password manager

Complex passwords take longer to crack. Mix upper and lowercase letters, special characters, numbers, and punctuation. With a password manager handling the heavy lifting, you won&#39;t need to remember them anyway.

6. Have a minimum password standard

Public Wi-Fi at coffee shops, hotels, or airports is convenient but risky. Hackers can intercept your data on unsecured networks. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your connection, keeping your browsing and login credentials safe. This is particularly important when accessing your CMS or business systems remotely. Many businesses provide VPN access to their teams. If yours doesn&#39;t, ask your IT department about setting one up.

7. Use a VPN

This one&#39;s on us, and we often do it without you noticing. Keeping software, packages, and plugins current with the latest security patches is essential. Sometimes these updates happen in the background; other times they need thorough implementation and testing.

8. Carry out general updates

Data breaches happen almost daily. Even to the world&#39;s biggest and supposedly most secure companies. Just look at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/20/jaguar-land-rover-hack-factories-cybersecurity-jlr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jaguar Land Rover</a> or <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93x16zkl9do" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Marks &amp; Spencer</a>. There&#39;s never been a better time to review your security setup. These steps could prevent a serious headache.Got questions or need help? <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">Get in touch</a>.

What are you waiting for?

Have a read of some of our other articles

8 ways to tighten website and app security

It’s estimated that <a href="http://pages.bettercloud.com/rs/719-KZY-706/images/2020_StateofSaaSOpsReport.pdf?mkt_tok=NzE5LUtaWS03MDYAAAF8LQdmoC7u54xbqxNwp0au4Zk7SiYaaqq2vupXFxCvaP5vY8gSQtlGFsUsRI8oj5Fl2m5PwIZUUAlzVZL_-hUEQ2RdNqgEzDAmZA5bZtowS_v-zMs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">85% of business apps will be SaaS-based</a> by the end of 2025, so keeping all your data, information, and details in check could become a more time-consuming headache very soon. So it’s ironic that <a href="http://pages.bettercloud.com/rs/719-KZY-706/images/2020_StateofSaaSOpsReport.pdf?mkt_tok=NzE5LUtaWS03MDYAAAF8LQdmoC7u54xbqxNwp0au4Zk7SiYaaqq2vupXFxCvaP5vY8gSQtlGFsUsRI8oj5Fl2m5PwIZUUAlzVZL_-hUEQ2RdNqgEzDAmZA5bZtowS_v-zMs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">54% of businesses</a> introduce SaaS systems to help improve productivity, but the more systems they add, the less productive they become. That’s why integrating your SaaS enterprise software could be the solution to reducing admin, cutting costs, and increasing productivity across the board. Goodbye admin, hello business growth.We’ve worked with various clients over the years to help them integrate their third-party SaaS services and CRMs into their business’s website, app, or portal. And we’ve seen just how beneficial it can be for the client firsthand.

A growing trend 

When it comes to deciding how to integrate, there are three options: out-of-the-box integrations that use the SaaS platform’s pre-built features, a standard API integration, or an advanced bespoke integration. Let’s break them down…

Types of integrations

An out-of-the-box integration essentially takes a SaaS platform’s pre-built features and connects it with your website. This can be a relatively straightforward task that’s easy to set up and could be implemented by internal teams or by working with some agencies. But there are some drawbacks, including:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Limited data handling</li><li value=2>Poor user experience</li><li value=3>Reduced security</li><li value=4>Single-direction data transfer</li><li value=5>Limited customisation</li></ul>While this might seem like a quick win, the limitations can become tedious and challenging, preventing your business from really utilising the full potential of your SaaS platform. And you could still be left with lots of backend admin and housekeeping, so you might not even save your company much time.

Out-of-the-box integration

Most SaaS enterprise software products will provide their own APIs that users can use to connect their SaaS platform with their website, portal, or app. Compared to an out-of-the-box integration, this can have benefits including:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Better data handling</li><li value=2>Improved user experience</li><li value=3>Tighter security</li><li value=4>Improved customisation</li></ul>But these integrations still have some serious drawbacks. For example, they’re very complex to set up, so your team will need a good level of technical knowledge about the API and platform you’re using. You may even need a specialist to help you out. And it gets even more complex if your business needs the API to connect to other third-party systems. So this can quickly become a complicated and time-consuming task that still won’t offer you the best utilisation of your SaaS platform.

Standard API integration

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If you want to make full use of your SaaS platform, beyond standard form handling or CRM syncing, an advanced bespoke integration is the way to go. Using a completely custom API, you can connect more than just your core SaaS software to your website—you can also connect with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, Product Information Management (PIM) software, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Digital Asset Management (DAM) software</a> and custom APIs, creating a central, automated hub for all your data that then powers your <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop">websites, apps, portals</a> and internal tools. This comes with countless time-saving and cost-saving benefits:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Flexibility – supports any custom use case</li><li value=2>Centralised – use your main SaaS system, like Salesforce, as a single source of truth for all your data across different systems</li><li value=3>Real-time – enables real-time, personalised updates</li><li value=4>Automated – enables the use of automation tools that are built into the SaaS system</li><li value=5>Complex relationships – supports complex object relationships and workflows</li><li value=6>Scalable – can be scaled up and down as your business grows and changes</li></ul>Advanced bespoke integrations are highly complex because they’re built around your business’s unique needs, so they need some level of ongoing maintenance to ensure the integration works efficiently and correctly all the time, but the benefits speak for themselves, especially when it comes to cutting back on tedious admin so you can focus on business growth.

Advanced bespoke integrations

Here at Si digital, we believe that if you pay for a SaaS service like Salesforce or HubSpot, you should be able to utilise every aspect of it, so fully bespoke integrations with your <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop">website, app, or portal</a> are the way to go. But integrating your SaaS enterprise software can be a daunting task.We’ve been working with our clients for the last two decades to build them bespoke websites with complex integrations, and we use a tried and tested framework to work efficiently and effectively. This allows us to bring our clients solutions that help them to meet their internal business targets, KPIs, and goals, so they know we’re all working in the same direction.When it comes to <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">bespoke integrations</a>, we’ve built our own custom <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday Middleware</a>. It works a little like a connection hub for your computer. We use it as a central point to connect all your business’s SaaS systems to your website, app, and portal, so data can flow quickly and easily between your various systems and platforms. Our Faraday Middleware is also scalable and flexible, so if your business finds it needs to use a new SaaS system, we can easily connect it up with everything else. Check out the diagram below to see how all the different elements of our Si Middleware work.

How advanced bespoke integrations work

One of our biggest SaaS successes has been our <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">work with Harwin</a>, where we not only designed and built them a new website but also integrated their <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce system</a> with their new website.Beyond the standard integration functionality, we built a bespoke integration that synchronises over 4,000+ products with their CRM and website, as well as integrating with other SaaS systems like Bynder (DAM), TraceParts (3D CAD models) and SnapMagic (PCB Footprints). And the benefits have been outstanding.

Results

The integration has also had benefits internally. It’s dramatically reduced the amount of admin the team has to carry out to update product details, allowing them to focus on growing their business and following up on valuable leads. Harwin proves exactly how a seamless Salesforce integration can help to drive business growth.Read more about <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">how we helped Harwin here</a>.If integrating your SaaS systems sounds like something your business could benefit from, you can <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">find out more about how we can help here</a>, or <a href="http://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch to book in a consultation</a>.

What is a SaaS enterprise system integration and how can it drive business growth?

Introducing Faraday: the custom middleware built to connect SaaS systems with your digital world

Lead Designer

Sam Leonard-Rendell

In an ever-changing digital world, the last thing you want to do is stand still if you&#39;re looking to stand out. Your website might be the first impression for visitors to learn about what it is your business does and we know how much weight negative experiences hold, whether it&#39;s an accurate representation of your services or not. That&#39;s why making UX and UI improvements to refine your website, rather than simply launching it and moving on, is an invaluable practice.Take the opportunity to show users that you care about their experience as much as you care about presenting yourself in the best light. A killer way to do that is through iterative design.

It might seem counterintuitive, but there&#39;s a crucial difference between improving your website and fixing it: the latter meaning you’re making it better without it first being broken. You&#39;re ahead of your game rather than trying to catch up. In other words, you&#39;re in control of what you&#39;re changing, why you&#39;re changing it, and how you&#39;re going to do it – and that is an exciting place to be.With digital environments constantly shifting, adaption shouldn&#39;t be a knee-jerk reaction. Using iterative UX and UI improvements, it becomes a steady evolution over time based on user testing, feedback and research from platforms like Hotjar, Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity. This means that you&#39;re not just addressing changes as and when your business grows, but focusing heavily on what users want most from your site and responding to it in good time.Our work with Wightlink is a fantastic example of how iteratively updating websites based on user feedback improves performance and overall experience for visitors in the same breath. First, we successfully redesigned a user-centric website built around how ferry passengers actually plan and travel. Where holidaymakers look for reassurance and clarity, regular commuters need speed and efficiency, so it was important to consider the individual requirements from each group as well.

Improve, don't fix

Then, by working closely with Wightlink, we uncovered persisting pain points and the solutions needed to fix them, resulting in the addition of Best Fare Finder and Wightlink Explorer post-launch. <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/wightlink">Read the full case study here to learn how our research shaped three core design principles that made all the difference</a>.

On top of overall user experience, iteratively updating your website means you can also make processes more efficient. When we rebuilt leading connector company Harwin&#39;s website from the ground up, we brought together their Salesforce system for product data with Bynder for digital assets, supported by a Payload CMS for content management, all through our secure <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday middleware</a>. It&#39;s not only made operations smoother, but more adaptable too. For example, switching out different tools based on changing business needs, and automatic syncing of new products to ensure everything is always up to date on the site.We also continue to launch new updates as and when they&#39;re needed for Harwin, including the helpful Cable Configurator – a user-focused experience for specifying bespoke products for customers’ projects. Plus, by using Microsoft Clarity session recordings, we&#39;ve made significant UX improvements to a whole host of features, such as a clearer navigation bar, better drop-down menus, improved type hierarchy, a more user-friendly contact page, a clearer layout for complex data on product pages, and plenty more.<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">And see how we slashed website load times by 90% for Harwin here</a>.

A streamlined evolution

Cohesion is key when it comes to having a recognisable business. As it grows, it&#39;s inevitable that your brand look and feel might change with it, so clear alignment is crucial to instill both trust and confidence in your customers. Plus, by updating iteratively in-step with competitors&#39; sites and user feedback, it doesn’t have to be a huge overhaul – small changes are just as effective as the big ones.We mentioned at the start of this article that the last thing you should do is stand still as the digital world continues to move forward – that applies to us as well. Besides regularly improving our own site, we have a proactive approach when it comes to our clients&#39; needs. Rather than waiting for them to discover a pain point or issue that needs addressing, we&#39;re already thinking about what solutions would work best for them next.As long-term partners, our clients know we have their interests in mind and trust that we&#39;ll bring something to the table that doesn&#39;t just solve a problem, it&#39;s already part of a larger iterative approach strategised to improve their product.

Always looking ahead

Totally free, no strings attached, we promise.

Download our UX & UI Self-Assessment 

Looking for someone to help tackle your problems with creative solutions? <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">Drop us a line. We&#39;re always keen to chat.</a>

We’ve seen it happen too many times. You’ve invested in a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop/mobile-apps">new app</a> or <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop/websites">website for your business</a>. The team is excited and everyone’s ready to launch. Then six months in, your budget has been blown, key features don’t work the way users need them to, and the project that was supposed to transform your business is now back down at the foot of the mountain.But the problem isn’t bad design or poor code. It’s much simpler: you started building before you knew what to build.Back in the early 2000s, we did the same thing. We’d come out of a client meeting and jump straight into design and development. We’d ask all the obvious questions, “who’s your target audience?”, “what does success look like?”, but we were only skimming the surface. We weren’t really digging into what their users actually needed. We had no idea what problems we needed to solve.Our clients loved what we delivered. But a few months down the line, they began to realise what features their users actually wanted. And adding these in post-launch would cost them more money. The smiles turned to frustration. The excitement turned to firefighting.It was time to take a step back and change our approach. Instead of jumping into design and build, we slowed down to understand. We asked tougher questions. We mapped out future needs. We analysed data. We did our research. We stopped treating <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover">discovery phases</a> as a nice-to-have and started treating it like an insurance our clients had to have.Around <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/transformation/our-insights/common-pitfalls-in-transformations-a-conversation-with-jon-garcia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">70% of digital products fail to hit their desired targets</a> according to research from McKinsey. Companies wasted tens of thousands of pounds designing and building features that their users simply didn’t want. And the cost of fixing those problems post-launch can be up to 100 times more expensive.This isn’t about adding time to projects. It’s about not wasting the time you’ve already got. So let’s talk about why discovery phases aren’t just valuable. They are a must-have.

We've seen it happen too many times

Skipping discovery phases is an industry-wide problem, affecting projects big and small. And it’s leaving some interesting stories in its wake.Remember Quibi? You’ve probably never heard of them. And that’s exactly the point. In 2020, former Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, former HP CEO, launched a mobile-first streaming platform for premium short-form video. They had around $1.75 billion in funding, and an impressive list of A-List celebrities like Dwayne Johnson, Chrissy Teigen, and Steven Spielberg behind them to create the content.But six months later, they shut down.Quibi didn’t fail because of bad execution or poor timing. They failed because they didn’t validate that anyone wanted what they were building. They spent over $1 billion creating content before even asking their audience a single question. They assumed users would pay for paywalled videos when YouTube and TikTok were already delivering free, sharable content. By the time they realised their users wanted social features rather than premium isolation, they had already burned through nearly $2 billion.Another example is Google Wave, an ambitious project launched back in 2009 that survived just over a year before being shut down. Why? Because Google didn’t figure out what users needed. Wave was billed as a groundbreaking new communication platform that would reimagine email by combining real-time collaboration, instant messaging, and document editing in one place.But Google skipped the vital discovery project phase and brought a product to the market with no foundation to give users the answers to their problems and no clear value proposition. They made assumptions without validating them with users, which resulted in a product that users simply didn’t need. And, as it turns out, users don’t want a platform that merges all their communications into one place.One last example is Panels, an app from YouTuber <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Marques Brownlee</a>. The app was built on a simple idea – premium subscription phone wallpapers, and launched in September 2024. The app was born from comments on his videos, often pointing out how nice his wallpapers were.Are comments on videos enough information to warrant building an app? No. In a world where background images are readily available for free on platforms like Unsplash and Pexels, it turns out nobody wanted to pay $50 a year for a subscription to get “premium” ones regularly.Panels closed down in December 2025, and it ultimately boils down to skipping that key discovery phase. If the Panels team had conducted proper user research, they would have found out before even starting to write a line of code that there was simply no market for a premium subscription wallpaper app.

An industry avalanche

It’s easy to sit here and analyse failed digital product launches, but why does it keep happening? And to projects funded by big and small companies?<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Pressure to move quickly</h3>Key stakeholders are driven by results. They want to see tangible output from their investment. Discovery can feel like standing around when everyone wants to sprint. So teams often skip it and dive straight to design and build, only to discover six months in that they’re building the wrong thing. And what they end up missing is the key foundational information that underpins the entire project.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Discovery gets mistaken for delay</h3>Nobody wants project delays. And stakeholders can be sensitive to this. They often see the research phase as a stalling tactic rather than essential groundwork. This is a dangerous misconception. Skipping discovery phases isn’t efficient; it’s a false economy that compounds into blown budgets and wasted time.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Activity gets confused with progress</h3>Wireframes feel like progress. Code feels like progress. Research? That just feels like more meetings. Stakeholders confuse visible activity with actual value, ignoring the fact that building the wrong thing quickly is worse than building the right thing thoughtfully.The result? Teams rush into execution, only to spend months, and tens of thousands, correcting avoidable mistakes.

So why does this keep happening? 

The most obvious cost of skipping a discovery phase is the failure of the project. But that’s not the case with most teams. There are more discreet, invisible costs involved. Most teams finish their project, but they finish with something that cost them twice as much, took significantly longer than it needed to, and doesn’t actually solve all their users’ problems.These are the invisible costs. The ones that don&#39;t show up until you&#39;re deep in development. And by then, they&#39;ve already compounded.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Stakeholder misalignment</h3>Everyone thinks they&#39;re on the same page. They&#39;re usually not. The managing director has one vision, the project manager another, and the development team a different vision again. And these differences all stay hidden during the honeymoon phase of the project, the phase where everyone’s excited and inspired. But when real decisions need to be made, everything explodes. You’re three months in, the budget half spent, and stakeholders are arguing over features that should have been agreed on from day one.<a href="https://teamstage.io/project-management-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research backs this</a>. Lack of senior management involvement in projects is the primary reason that 33% of projects fail. And 78% of project managers say they want stakeholders to be more involved and engaged. A clear sign that plenty of projects suffer from a lack of alignment.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Technical surprises</h3>When you skip discovery phases, you fail to uncover the technical landmines until it’s too late. That seemingly easy integration you thought would be a quick win? It needs <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">bespoke middleware</a> to work. That feature the client requested? It doesn’t work with the platform architecture. These kinds of discoveries when a project is in full motion mean more than just delays; they force costly reworks and scope creep.Fixing these kinds of issues during development phases can <a href="https://www.blackduck.com/blog/cost-to-fix-bugs-during-each-sdlc-phase.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cost up to six times</a> more than catching them during a discovery phase. <a href="https://www.blackduck.com/blog/cost-to-fix-bugs-during-each-sdlc-phase.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">15 times more</a> during that testing phase. And post-launch? <a href="https://www.blackduck.com/blog/cost-to-fix-bugs-during-each-sdlc-phase.html">Up to 100 times the cost</a>.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Unvalidated users need</h3>Around <a href="https://www.pendo.io/resources/the-2019-feature-adoption-report/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">80% of software features are rarely or never used</a>. Why? Because teams build in functionality they assume the user wants based on internal logic and stakeholder preference, not actual user research. And this results in bloated products full of features that nobody asked for. As for the things users genuinely need, these get deprioritised or forgotten completely.If you’re a startup, this can have detrimental effects on the business. Around 42% of startups fail because of “no market need”. It’s the number one cause of failures according to <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/startup-failure-reasons-top/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CB Insights’ report</a>, which analyses nearly 4,000 failed startups. Teams assume, users needs aren’t met, and money gets wasted.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Scope creep</h3>Requirements are often vague without a discovery phase. And vague requirements mean endless clarification needs during build. Every clarification then opens a door to a new idea, which in turn shifts priorities and even “while we’re at it” additions. Before you know it, your project has ballooned into a bloated mess that’s missed the deadline and blown the budget.<a href="https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/pulse" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research from PMI suggests</a> that organisations can avoid budget loss and project failure by investing in communication and alignment work upfront, which is exactly what discovery phases provide.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>The real cost</h3>These issues each feed into one another. Misaligned stakeholders result in woolly requirements. Woolly requirements create scope creep. Scope creep leads to technical limitations. Technical limitations force rework. Rework burns through budget. Suddenly, your project is 45% over budget. <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/delivering-large-scale-it-projects-on-time-on-budget-and-on-value" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research from McKinsey</a> shows this to be the average budget overrun on large-scale digital projects.While discovery phases don’t mitigate all the problems, they do help to surface them before they get expensive. And that’s the difference between a successful project and one that can barely make it across the finish line.

The invisible cost

If you’re unsure if your agency is carrying out a thorough and full discovery phase, download our free checklist to see what your agency is (or isn’t) doing right. 

Download our free discovery checklist

Agencies all work in different ways, ask different questions, and present their findings differently. So how do you know if yours is doing it properly? Let’s break it down:<h3 style='text-align: start;'>A proper workshop, not just a kick-off call</h3>A good <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover/workshops">discovery workshop</a> shouldn’t feel like a glorified briefing session. It’s where your agency digs into the detail, like your business goals, your users, your constraints, and any assumptions you have. By the end of it, they should understand your problem as well as you do. If they’re not asking uncomfortable questions, they’re simply not going deep enough.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Research that goes beyond your brief</h3>Your agency should be doing the heavy lifting you have time for. That means <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover/research">market research, competitor analysis, and most importantly, user research</a>. This is where assumptions are validated or killed. If your agency is skipping straight ahead to a solution without speaking to real users, that’s a huge red flag.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Analysis that rules things out</h3>Proper discovery doesn’t just generate ideas, it eliminates them, too. By the time your agency comes to present their findings, they should be able to confidently tell you what will and won’t work and why. If everything is still on the table, the analysis hasn’t been rigorous enough.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Evidence-backed solutions</h3>Any <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover/solutions">proposed solutions</a> should be connected to and backed by the research. Every feature, design decision, and technical choice should have a valid reason behind it. If your agency can’t explain why something’s included, it probably shouldn’t be.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Genuine alignment, not just sign-off</h3>Discovery works if everyone’s genuinely on the same page, not just nodding along. This is the time to discuss disagreements, clarify priorities, and make sure leadership, and stakeholders, project managers, and delivery teams share the same vision. Skipping this step is how you end up with arguments three months in.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Measurable success metrics</h3>Success needs to be measurable. Not vague goals like “better user experience”, but real numbers. Conversion rates, task completion times, order values, support ticket reductions. If you can’t measure it, you can’t prove the project worked.That&#39;s the theory. Here&#39;s what it looks like in practice.

What good discovery looks like

Let’s <a href="https://www.wightlink.co.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">look at Wightlink</a>, an award-winning ferry service connecting over 4.3 million passengers a year between the Isle of Wight and Hampshire.Their website is enormous. It features complex booking functionality, multiple user types, time-sensitive travel decisions, and a user base with varied needs. From daily commuters to holidaymakers. A project of this scale can’t afford assumptions.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>So, we didn’t assume anything</h3>Before we even opened Figma or started writing a single line of code, we ran an in-depth <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover">discovery phase</a> with the team at Wightlink. We also ran <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover/workshops">workshops during actual ferry crossings</a> to understand how their customers interacted with the service. We asked what we thought were obvious questions: does this page layout work? Is the price displayed clearly? Are booking tools prominent enough? Turns out the answers weren’t so obvious after all.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What we discovered was invaluable</h3>We discovered different user groups had very different needs. Daily commuters needed speed. Holidaymakers needed reassurance and detail. Staff needed CMS functionality that streamlined their workflow. None of this was insight we could have guessed. It came from asking and listening.Our research directly informed both our <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/design/digital-design">UX decisions</a> and technical architecture. We validated every feature to ensure it was there for a reason, not because we thought it was needed. Every design decision connected back to real user insight and behaviour, not our own assumptions. The outcome is a website that actually serves users properly because we knew what their users needed before we started design and build.

Discovering Wightlink

It’s easy to say in hindsight, but we know if we’d skipped the discovery phase and gone straight into design, we would have built a website that wasn’t what users wanted or needed. And the project would have become another expensive statistic.Instead, it’s a case study in what happens when you invest in discovery upfront.You can read more about <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/wightlink">how we helped Wightlink</a>.

Ensuring discovery phases happen, and happen properly, can be a bit daunting. It’s often difficult to justify the expenditure, so here are some tips for getting it across the line:<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Pitching discovery to leadership</h3>Most projects run aground here. Key stakeholders and decision-makers see discovery phases as a delay, not an investment. To make it smoother:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Make sure you position the discovery phase as risk mitigation, not just research. Leadership tends to understand the value of insurance.</li><li value=2>Throw stats their way. Tell them fixing the problems post-launch could cost up to 100x more than catching them during discovery. And use case studies like Quibi and Panels to demonstrate the value of user research and insight.</li></ul><h3 style='text-align: start;'>When budgets are tight</h3>The luxury of a discovery phase isn’t an option for everyone, especially when it comes to project budgets. If you’re worried about budget:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Opt for a minimum viable discovery. This should cover a stakeholder alignment workshop and at least one round of user validation. This helps to reduce the risk when budgets don’t allow for a full-blown discovery phase.</li><li value=2>Prioritise the riskiest assumptions first. If you know you’re assuming key features, validate those before anything else. You can shut down unfounded ideas before they get too set in.</li><li value=3>Approach discovery proportionately. Cut your cloth to suit, and carry out a discovery phase that both fits your budget and your project needs.</li></ul><h3 style='text-align: start;'>Red flags to watch out for</h3>Keep an eye on any red flags as you work through the project. Self-diagnose as your project progresses if you start to see:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Disagreements between stakeholders relating to priorities three months in.</li><li value=2>Knee-jerk requests, and “while we’re at it” asks becoming constant.</li><li value=3>Unanticipated technical blockers, like platforms that don’t support what your users need.</li><li value=4>Features built on opinion rather than evidence.</li></ul><h3 style='text-align: start;'>Get outside help</h3>If you find your project going off the rails, it’s time to get external help. This is key when:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Internal teams are too close to the problem to be able to work out a solution.</li><li value=2>You need specialist skills and insight that you don’t have in-house.</li><li value=3>An external perspective on the problem can challenge assumptions that internal politics won’t allow.</li></ul>

Make it happen

Settling into basecamp before starting the climb is key to a project’s success. Putting the time, effort, and investment into the discovery phase is insurance. You, your team, and your stakeholders can work through your project knowing you’re creating a product that’s going to meet your users’ needs, as well as the business’s own goals and KPIs.Discovery isn’t a nice-to-have or a box-ticking exercise. It’s the difference between a project that gets stuck halfway up the mountain and a project that reaches the summit. So, before you get stuck into your next big build, take a step back. Make sure the groundwork has been done properly. No corner cutting, no holding back. And if you’re unsure whether your agency is carrying out a thorough discovery phase, download our free checklist to see what they are or aren&#39;t doing right.

It’s time to change your mindset

Let's stop pretending we can skip project discovery phases

Back in 2019, we created something that resonated with designers everywhere: a series of posters bringing Jakob Nielsen&#39;s usability heuristics to life. These principles, <a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/">originally outlined in his 1994 article for The Nielsen Norman Group</a>, struck a chord with so many people that we&#39;ve given them a fresh look and a new lease of life.Here&#39;s the thing about usability heuristics, they&#39;re not rigid rules you have to follow to the letter. Think of them more as guiding principles that form the bedrock of solid usability practices. We&#39;ve leaned on these time and again <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/design/digital-design">when designing interfaces</a> or digging into usability test results. They give us a clear framework to work within and align our thinking.

Download our 10 Usability Heuristics Posters

Here at the Si digital studio, we wanted our walls to reflect the work we do, so Jakob Nielsen&#39;s original article got us thinking, why not turn these &quot;10 Usability Heuristics&quot; into something visual and inspiring?Fast forward to today, and these posters are printed, framed, and hanging in our studio. They&#39;ve become such a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/design/digital-design">valuable part of our daily work</a> that we wanted to share them in their new form with the wider design community.This Lab Note showcases a couple of our 10 posters, and we&#39;re making them available as free downloads in PDF, PNG, and JPG formats. We hope they inspire your work as much as they&#39;ve inspired ours. Feel free to share them with your team.

Bringing heuristics to life in our studio

The 10 Usability Heuristics – updated for 2026

Why UX and UI iteration are crucial practices for stand-out websites and apps

Lead Frontend Developer

Danny Walker

Payload is a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop/payload">modern headless CMS</a> that uses powerful technologies like TypeScript, Node.js, and React—technologies that form the core of our frontend development stack. Its endless customisation options enable us to build tailored APIs and flexible content structures that perfectly match our clients&#39; specific requirements.

What is Payload CMS?

We’ve seen countless benefits from Payload since we’ve been using it, and they’re benefits to both us and our clients. We’ve picked out our top seven benefits below:

The benefits of Payload CMS

A lot of our clients often come to us with a website and a few third-party SaaS systems they want to speak to their website, portal, or app, like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce</a> or a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/payment-gateways">payment gateway</a>. Payload’s headless CMS features an Application Programming Interface (API) endpoint, and when paired with our Si Middleware, we can integrate systems into websites, portals, or apps with ease. It means data can be fetched, updated, and created quickly and easily, so our clients can access their data from the CMS anywhere they like.<a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">We integrate all sorts of third-party systems</a> into our client websites, and Payload makes the process a lot quicker and easier for both our clients and us. It’s a win-win situation.

1. Integration

Nobody wants to have to rebuild their website every year. Not only would it be costly and time-consuming, but it can be a jarring experience for your users too. Payload is a future-proofed CMS option. Using the latest TypeScript and Node technology, Payload is built to be secure and reliable. It receives regular updates as well, keeping everything running smoothly on your site.

2. Longevity

Websites can often be left in the same state for long periods of time, and this is often due to the pain of trying to get changes and code updated. Payload is built around flexible content modelling, which means it’s easier for our developers to quickly add features and fields to your website. This means websites can grow and scale at the same rate as your business, so your website never falls behind.

3. Flexibility

Security is normally our clients’ top priority. Over the last few years, cyber attacks and hack rates have rocketed, meaning there’s more focus than ever before on keeping your website’s sensitive data safe and secure.Payload is self-hosted, which means you have control and oversight of all the data that the website holds and accesses. This is a huge benefit for companies that have websites that contain sensitive user data such as personal information. Your data is fully controlled by you, not a third-party service.

4. Security

Website performance is essential for success in the world of digital. Studies have found that around <a href="https://prerender.io/blog/page-speed-tips-and-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">40% of desktop users</a> will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load - and this number rises to 53% for mobile users. It’s also worth noting that search engines like Google <a href="https://www.debugbear.com/docs/page-load-time#what-is-a-good-page-load-time" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">penalise websites that take over 4 seconds to load</a>, pushing you further down the results list. The message is clear: the faster your website performs, the better chance you have of keeping visitors engaged with your content.Payload&#39;s headless CMS is optimised to load content and images quickly, especially when combined with Next.js static site generation. Users expect to find content quickly and easily—it&#39;s a fundamental UX principle that leads to higher conversion rates, and this performance boost ensures your users are getting to where they want to be quickly.But it’s not just your website’s users that can benefit from the performance boost. The backend of the CMS is lightning quick as well. Building out new pages can take a matter of minutes. Adding in blocks is instant, uploading images is rapid, and saving your page between edits is speedy, meaning clients spend less time waiting around for content and blocks loading in.

5. Performance

Quality is at the heart of everything we do here. Payload supports TypeScript, a powerful enhancement of JavaScript created by Microsoft, to ensure our code meets the highest standards. Its strict typing system helps us catch errors early and write more reliable code, resulting in robust and maintainable websites for our clients.

6. Quality

It’s important as ever to ensure your site performs well from an SEO perspective to ensure the correct users are finding your site. Improving rankings on Google and other search engines means more traffic to your site. Payload comes with a whole host of SEO tools built-in as standard, and they’re super easy to use.Its visual-led design tells you how your meta descriptions and images are performing, as well as giving you an SEO check score out of three. You can upload a custom meta image too to maximise impact. Payload will even give you a preview of how your page will look when it shows up on search listings.

7. SEO

Thanks to Payload’s flexibility, it’s a great option for many different types of websites across all sorts of industries. We’ve built massive websites with complex SaaS integrations like Harwin, to smaller brochure sites like our own. But Payload CMS is also a great option for content-rich websites and blogs, membership platforms, internal enterprise tools, and much more.

What type of site would benefit from a Payload CMS?

From flexibility to security to SEO, Payload excels at being a slick, optimised CMS for our clients that lets them reap the rewards of a fully optimised website. Moving CMS is never an easy decision, and usually involves a full website rebuild and redesign, but the benefits can be huge. Payload is an excellent example of how a CMS should be, and as a modern agency, we’ve loved every minute of our move across to Payload.If you’ve got a website you’re thinking of rebuilding and want to move across to Payload, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a>.

Conclusion

The benefits of choosing Payload CMS for your business’s next website

Since its announcement at WWDC in June, Apple’s new Liquid Glass UI design for its 2026 (and beyond) operating systems has proved polarising. With its transparent, content-manipulating effects and reactive components, it’s a bold step away from the flat, static look we’ve grown accustomed to since Apple launched iOS 7 back in 2013, and an even bolder progression from the skeuomorphic designs we were used to before that.But what if we’ve been looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass in the wrong way? This isn’t about surface-level design trends or flashy animations. It’s about the future of technology and how we interact with it.

Apple’s Liquid Glass design language was launched yesterday with iOS 26, and as the world installs this new design system onto their phones, watches, headsets, tablets, laptops, and TVs, it’ll take time for users to adjust to this new look and way of interacting with their devices.What many people haven’t yet realised is that the way we interact with our devices is changing. With virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) becoming more prevalent, the line between the real world and the digital world is beginning to blur more and more. The <a href="https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/infographics/virtual-reality-market-101378" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">VR industry is expected to be worth $123bn</a> by 2032. To put that into context, it was only worth $16.32bn in 2024. So, the transition in UI design as we focus more on VR &amp; AR is inevitable, and likely for the good of the usability of those devices in the future.When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, we were at a similar juncture for UI and UX, but we didn&#39;t realise it at the time. We’d been using clunky phones with physical keyboards and untouchable content for decades, and suddenly we had a device where we could touch the content we were interacting with. Note-taking, calendars, compasses, and more. Getting users to understand this resulted in skeuomorphic design – a style that brought relatable, understandable, real-world context to digital applications and interactions. It was about educating users in a manageable way that didn’t feel a million miles away from using a real notepad or a real calendar.

A new era for UI design begins today

After six years of training us, Apple made the move away from skeuomorphic design across to flat design with iOS 7. That style has developed, changed, and grown into what we’ve now become familiar with in iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2. Liquid Glass might look like pure visual polish, but it’s doing something much more important: teaching us a new way to interact. Just as skeuomorphism helped us move away from physical buttons to touchscreens, Liquid Glass is quietly preparing us for a future that isn’t restricted to screens at all. We’re moving into a new era where digital worlds are layered over the real world, and how we interact with it depends on more than just our fingertips. This shift needs a different kind of interface. One that listens, watches, and responds. It feels alive. This is where multimodal UI design comes in.

Multimodal UI design language relies on more than just a single input, like touch. It’s built around voice, gaze, movement, and touch. It’s this that bridges the gap between what we know as an OS, and what an OS will become. Take visionOS, or Meta Horizon OS. Both are examples of multimodal interfaces. Not only is the content overlaid onto the real world, it’s controlled by the direction you’re looking, or by your voice as you ask it to perform an action or task. And, especially in vision OS, these overlaid interface elements are designed to interact and work with the world around them, rather than just sitting on top.

Liquid Glass isn’t just multimodal, it’s reactive. Built around a system of free-floating elements and components, the interface dynamically adjusts to how you use it. These elements aren’t locked to a fixed screen either; they appear when you need them and fade away when you don’t.It’s this fluidity that makes Liquid Glass the ideal UI for overlaying on the real world. Elements can subtly sink into the surroundings when idle and reappear when they’re relevant. If your environment changes, the UI responds and reveals what’s behind it by taking a step back. It’s a design system that’s as understanding and perceptive as you are.Apple’s approach is also about unifying an experience across their device ecosystem. As all these devices begin to merge into a spatial realm, consistency will be key. Liquid Glass isn’t limited to iPhones; it’s become the universal design language used across all of Apple’s devices. This is an important shift. Historically, Apple has tended to update the iPhone and iPad visual designs ahead of the Mac. For example, when Apple launched its flat design system with iOS 7, macOS Mavericks still maintained its skeuomorphic design. The fact Apple is rolling Liquid Glass out across its entire suite of operating systems sends a clear message: this is the future, and it’s starting now.

In contrast, Google has taken a <a href="https://blog.google/products/android/material-3-expressive-android-wearos-launch/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">very different approach</a> with its latest design system, Material 3. Its punchy colours, expressive typographic treatments, and bold graphic devices feel optimised for rectangular screens. Perfect for phones and tablets. But as we move into a world where interfaces begin to extend beyond the screen, this look and feel will quickly fall behind and become limiting.Material 3 is firmly rooted as a visual language for traditional devices. It’s difficult to imagine these vibrant, highly-saturated colours and decorative sticker-like layers translating to spatial environments or multimodal interfaces where the UI has to adapt to different lighting, varying depths, and real-world context.Compared to Apple’s Liquid Glass design system, Material 3 feels like it was designed solely for mobile-era aesthetics. We imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before Android follows suit.

Material 3: Beautifully screen-bound

Despite its future-focussed foundations, Liquid Glass is a polarising design language, and this is primarily for two reasons: accessibility and its association with past design trends. Stylistically, it’s been compared to Windows Vista, which launched in 2007 with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">new design style called Aero</a>. Aero marked a dramatic move away from the blocky era of Windows XP, and just like Liquid Glass today, it divided opinion. But the intent behind Liquid Glass is very different to Windows Vista. Windows Vista was about reskinning a system users were already very familiar with to make it feel more modern. Liquid Glass is about the shift from screens to spatial, immersive experiences.Accessibility is a much bigger concern. With its glassy, translucent design, Liquid Glass definitely poses some issues with legibility and contrast, especially against high-contrast backgrounds. This is surprising coming from Apple. They’ve long been seen as leaders when it comes to inclusive design; <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/accessibility/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">it’s one of their core values</a>.However, it’s important to remember that Apple gives users a deep level of accessibility customisation so they can hone their devices to work for them. And Apple has always made iterative improvements as time goes on. Remember when iOS 7’s animations were <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-ios-literally-making-users-sick/story?id=20385379" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">making users motion sick</a>? Or when users said the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/fonts-dont-lie-thin-ios-7-os-x-flna6c10245346" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">system typefaces were too thin</a>? Apple responded by adjusting the design language.Liquid Glass is following a similar path. We’re entering uncharted territory with spatial, multimodal user interfaces. There will be missteps. But just as with past transitions, refinement will come with time, and with real-world feedback from users pushing the boundaries of how we interact beyond screens.

Growing pains

While <a href="https://www.techtimes.com/articles/309937/20250409/apple-vision-pros-sales-flop-theyre-rushing-out-new-one-m5-chip-before-2025-ends.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Apple Vision Pro has been a slow burner</a>, it’s still early days for spatial and multimodal UI design, but one thing is clear – the UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen. We’re moving into a new era where interfaces live around us, watching, listening, and responding as we interact with them and the world around us. And design systems won’t just be about aesthetics or branding; they’ll need to feel native and reactive to real-world environments, natural movement, and human behaviour.Liquid Glass is the start of a much bigger shift in design and how we interact with our devices. By introducing translucency, depth, and movement into today’s rectangular screen boundaries, it’s preparing us all for a world where interfaces are responsive and immersive, and not restricted to a glass rectangle.Brands that embrace multimodal, spatial design languages now will be the ones who lead in the years ahead as our digital and physical worlds blend together. And users will expect that to feel natural. As for designers and developers, those of us who understand this early and adopt this design ethos will define what’s coming next.

The UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen

Why you’re looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass UI the wrong way

Lead Backend Developer

Richard Keen

Over the week, we’ve sat down with members of the dev team to pick their brains about what they love about being a dev, their favourite apps, and their best advice. Read on to find out more.

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Visual Studio Code</h3>Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is an open-source code editor from Microsoft. It’s highly customisable and supports over 25,000 extensions. This means each dev here at Si digital can completely customise their individual working environment to suit their own ways of working.As well as being highly customisable, VS Code works cross-platform, meaning developers can work on macOS, Linux, or Windows to build their digital products. It’s also got a built-in Git repository feature, so devs can stage, commit, and push code directly inside the editor.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Docker</h3>Docker is a platform for building, running, and managing applications in containers. It underpins most of our projects here at Si digital because it gives us consistency. Instead of spending hours setting up each environment, we can spin up a project and all its dependencies in around 20 seconds. Every developer works with the exact same setup, so there’s no “but it works on my machine,” and sharing containers makes collaboration quick and seamless. Essentially, Docker lets developers ship software faster, more reliably, and with fewer environment headaches.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>GitHub</h3>GitHub is central to our workflow at Si digital. It enables us to develop and deploy projects quickly and efficiently, removing unnecessary hurdles and streamlining our processes. It’s a key tool that keeps our work moving fast and smoothly.

Our top 3 dev apps and tools

Meet Rich, our Lead Backend Developer. We sat down with him to talk about what it’s really like getting into development and what he loves about being a developer. Here’s what he had to say.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>When did you first start getting interested in development and why?</h3>I first got into development in Year 9, and it quickly became something I was passionate about. I went on to take a GCSE in Computing, and I absolutely loved it. Problem-solving always felt natural to me, and I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of tackling a tricky problem. There’s something really satisfying about working through an issue and finally finding the solution, and that sense of reward has kept me motivated ever since.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>How much has your role changed since you started?</h3>There’s been quite a lot of change over the last decade or so in terms of both frontend and backend development.PHP has evolved, adding features that make writing better and code cleaner. On the front end, frameworks like React have completely changed how projects are built and structured. It’s been interesting to see the digital world develop and change.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What’s the toughest bug you’ve had to fix?</h3>One of our clients’ apps had an issue with some mapping where the map would track the user’s location, then jump back. It took four devs a few days to work out what the issue was. Definitely a tricky bug to squash, but we worked it out!<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Favourite language to code in and why?</h3>I love building in PHP. It’s the language I’ve used the most and feels most comfortable to work with, probably due to years of building and maintaining projects in it. I know its quirks, strengths, and best practices inside out, so it’s definitely my go-to language to build in.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What’s been your favourite project to build and why?</h3>It’s got to be Harwin. Not only is their website a huge technical challenge, but from a backend development point of view, I was excited to try out Elasticsearch for the product filtering. It was a good challenge and fun too.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What do you think the future looks like for developers?</h3>Obviously, AI is a big thing right now, but I think the impact from that will be felt the most by junior developers since it excels at automating tasks and repetitive coding tasks. Experienced developers add architectural understanding and problem-solving that AI can’t replicate.

Meet the Makers

When it comes to learning new skills, it can be a bit of a minefield of information. So, finding good-quality dev learning resources can be a tricky task. We’ve pulled together a short list of our go-to learning resources. We’ve covered everything from resources for news and updates to keep your finger on the pulse, through to tutorials to get you started.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Dev Community</h3>Dev Community is a forum for developers to keep up-to-date with the latest news and updates in the world of code. With 3m+ developers part of their community, it’s the perfect place to gain insight into new tech and updates, as well as a great place to get questions answered.<a href="https://dev.to/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Visit Dev Community</a><h3 style='text-align: start;'>MDN</h3>MDN is a vast, open-source project owned and run by Mozilla, in partnership with a global community of volunteers and partners. The platform boasts 45k+ pages of resources, with over 46m views a month. Resources range from comprehensive documentation for languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, to learning resources and interactive courses to kickstart your web career. There’s also a blog and a playground to try out your code.<a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Visit MDN</a><h3 style='text-align: start;'>Wes Bos</h3>Wes Bos is a developer and teacher from Ontario, Canada. He set up a website to help fresh developers learn new skills in languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript. Each week, he creates free and premium courses and hosts a podcast called Syntax, which covers everything from the latest industry news to tackling the big issues.<a href="https://wesbos.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Visit Wes Bos</a>

Go-to learning resources

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Focus on one thing at a time </h3>Try to focus on one thing at a time; don’t split your attention across multiple tasks at once. So, if you‘re starting out and trying to learn PHP, stick with it and focus on it until you’re comfortable. Don’t try to learn too many technologies in one go.Rich – Lead Backend Developer<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Don’t aim for perfect code right away</h3>Mistakes and messy first drafts are part of the learning process. Focus on getting things working first, then come back and improve it, one function at a time. If you chase perfection from the start, you’ll slow yourself down and miss out on valuable lessons. Mastery takes time, refine as you go, and keep learning.Alfie – Full Stack Developer<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Learn the core principles first, then the framework</h3>Don’t start by learning a framework right away (like React or Laminas). First, focus on the core language the framework is built on. JavaScript before React, PHP before Laminas. Once you understand the fundamentals, learning the framework will be much easier and make more sense.Mike – Backend Developer<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Build stuff you care about to practice your skills</h3>Instead of endlessly starting new things you’ll never finish, focus on actually building projects you genuinely care about. When you work on something that excites you, you’ll stay motivated long enough to push through the challenges, rather than leaving behind a trail of half-finished experiments that don’t teach you much.Cameron – Frontend Developer

Best advice for starting out

If you’re just starting out as a developer, or want to expand your knowledge, we regularly post about the latest technologies and resources we’re using, so give us a follow on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/si-digital/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sidgtl/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Instagram</a> to keep up.

Thinking about becoming a dev?

You may have <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2024/10/wordpress-wpengine-matt-mullenweg-drama-explained.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">seen the news surrounding WordPress</a> lately. If you haven’t, WordPress has been at the centre of a media storm, causing confusion and concern amongst developers, as well as people who have sites built on WordPress.In September, WordPress CEO, Matt Mullenweg, went after WP Engine (WPE), calling it a “cancer to WordPress”, accusing WPE of taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the WordPress platform. WordPress then sent cease and desist letters to WPE before banning it from accessing WordPress.com entirely. This move has left significant numbers of websites vulnerable to cyberattacks or left them completely unusable.As a result of the issues with WordPress, we’ve been exploring some CMS alternatives. Here’s our top five:

The WordPress whirlwind

Created in 2021, Payload was designed to showcase what can be done when using modern frameworks to build a CMS. Payload can be used for any type of website thanks to it’s easy to use application programming interface (API). It also integrates seamlessly with popular frameworks like Next.js, so it’s a good all-round solution. Here at Si digital, Payload empowers us to create beautiful websites that are fast, easy to manage and highly customisable. If you want to find out more about why we’ve moved to Payload, <a href="https://sidigital.co/lab-notes/why-weve-swapped-wordpress-for-payload" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">have a read of this Lab Note</a>.Advantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>It’s simple layout makes its easy to built new pages and navigate</li><li value=2>It’s very fast—creating new pages is rapid, a real time-saver</li><li value=3>Excellent SEO tools make it easy to use and its visual aides help you determine whether your SEO content is working to its full potential</li><li value=4>eCommerce product management means running your online store is simple</li><li value=5>Live previews, see the page you’re building as you build it</li><li value=6>Create your own forms directly in the CMS—really powerful</li><li value=7>Top-quality editorial tools make your content stand out</li></ul>Disadvantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>It’s plugin ecosystem is quite small at the moment, and they have to be installed manually rather than through a user interface, meaning development time is required</li><li value=2>Due to its infancy there are some features which require plugins or modification, where other CMSs have these as native features</li></ul>

01. Payload

Released in 2001, Drupal is a developer-focused CMS known for its scalability and customisation capabilities. Drupal has an extensive library of plugins, making it a good option for large or complex websites. It can take time to master due to its complexity, but it allows for granular content management, user roles and internationalisation.Advantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Large plugin library</li><li value=2>Enterprise backing—Drupal is used by lots of government websites and non-profits</li><li value=3>Drupal offers out-of-the-box user and permission management tools, providing security from the get-go</li><li value=4>Large online community makes it easy to get support if you need it</li></ul>Disadvantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>It’s a steep learning curve for both developers and users. Its complex CMS can be quite complicated in places</li><li value=2>Hosting can be expensive compared to other options</li><li value=3>Performance is slower than many alternatives</li></ul>

02. Drupal

Craft CMS is similar to both Drupal and WordPress, but it’s much newer, so it has more modern features such as multiple post authors, in-editor live preview and headless support. It also features a fairly neutral user interface, meaning that you’ll feel right at home if you’re moving from other CMS’s. It’s built using PHP, just like WordPress and Drupal, meaning developers can get up to speed quickly and easily.Advantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Easy-to-use user interface makes it easy to pick up if you’re moving from another CMS</li><li value=2>Large plugin directory</li><li value=3>Extremely customisable fields make the CMS a breeze to use</li><li value=4>Easy localisation makes your website accessible anywhere in the world</li></ul>Disadvantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Not free for commercial use, creating an additional cost to your business</li><li value=2>Relies heavily on plugins for what would be considered standard features in other CMSs, such as forms and SEO</li><li value=3>Multiple users are only supported in paid versions</li></ul>

03. Craft CMS

Contentful is a headless CMS, meaning your website and CMS are kept separate, rather than being kept together like the other CMSs we’ve looked at so far. Contentful is hosted in the cloud, so your content is highly available all over the globe.Its headless CMS structure is ideal if you have a fully custom website. Decoupling the CMS and frontend offers countless benefits, including improved security, speed and flexibility. However, it does require a bit more work in the project build phase.Advantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Simple, easy to use user interface</li><li value=2>Fast, and globally available</li><li value=3>AI integration makes for easy content generation and automated routine tasks</li><li value=4>Highly customisable</li><li value=5>It&#39;s low maintenance thanks to its cloud-based hosting. Contentful manage and maintain the platform</li></ul>Disadvantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Contentful’s free tier is quite restrictive, which limits what you can achieve without paying</li><li value=2>Interface usability is dependant on how you chose to structure your data, so it can become messy without proper upfront planning</li><li value=3>Standalone CMS which requires an entirely separate frontend build</li></ul>

04. Contentful

While MDX is not a CMS, it’s a different approach to managing website content. With MDX, you edit your content by editing files, like a Word or Notion document, making it a familiar and easy experience for editors to add or change content. MDX extends the functionality provided by Markdown, allowing the addition of custom blocks in and around content. It is also super fast and can be embedded directly into your Next.js project. MDX is best suited for technical marketing teams, developers and solo maintainer projects.Advantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Content loads very quickly</li><li value=2>Pages and posts are editable in a familiar document style, so it is quick and easy to update content</li><li value=3>Not reliant on a separate CMS stack, so less to maintain</li></ul>Disadvantages:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>No user interface whatsoever—you can only edit a file</li><li value=2>If there’s an error in the file, the page won’t load on the frontend</li><li value=3>No user or permissions management</li></ul>

05. MDX

While PHP-based CMSs like WordPress and Drupal have become the go-to option, they are gradually being replaced by faster, lighter and more modern CMSs like Payload and Contentful. PHP based CMSs have shaped the way we build websites over the last 20 years, and have allowed marketeers to independently manage website content without having to continually turn to developers for basic updates. They’ve also allowed people to install themes to start building a site through a ‘full-site editor’ experience without the need to write any code. This is really useful for small companies and individuals, but often come at the cost of flexibility, customisation and site speed, all of which are vital for a website’s success.On the flip-side, setting up a headless CMS will require technical ability, but in return you’ll have a flexible, fully-bespoke website with better security and quicker page load speeds. Our own website, and the <a href="https://www.harwin.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">website we’ve designed and built for Harwin</a> are both built using Payload and Next.js. The speed of both the frontend and CMS for these sites is unmatched when compared to traditional CMS options.If you’ve got an existing site that uses a traditional CMS, it might be a good time to start thinking moving across to something more modern. So <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">get in touch</a> if you’re ready to make the jump from WordPress to a new, drama-free CMS.

Time to move from WordPress?

The best WordPress alternatives for your website and why you should switch

National Coding Week 2025

It’s time to rethink what SaaS integration really means. In our experience, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">bespoke integrations</a> offer significantly more value, not just technically, but strategically. Done right, they foster growth, reduce risk, and unlock innovation. For businesses using SaaS tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Monday.com, connecting these systems to your digital products isn’t optional; it’s business-critical. Without it, you’re left with work duplication, spiralling operational costs, and growing data silos. <a href="https://www.xplm.com/news/press/industry-study-2023-companies-cannot-control-their-data-silos/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">XPLM found that</a> 76% of businesses say data silos negatively impact collaboration, with a further 74% viewing them as a competitive disadvantage.

There are essentially three ways to approach integrating your SaaS systems with your <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop">website, portal, or app:</a> out-of-the-box, which uses a system’s pre-built features; standard API integration, which takes the SaaS system’s own API and allows you to connect it to your digital products; or the advanced bespoke integration route, which is completely custom and unique to your business and its needs.

What is an advanced bespoke integration?

We’re advocates of going down the advanced bespoke integration route for a few reasons. Let’s break down how going bespoke could benefit your business and its workflows.

If updating data in multiple places is something you’re familiar with, then an advanced integration could cut down on your admin tasks. Using our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday middleware</a>, we can get your SaaS systems to speak to one another for super smooth data flows. This means you’ll only need to update your data in one place, rather than four or five places. This not only cuts back on tedious admin time, but it also means you’ll be able to rely on your data more because there’s less chance of human error when inputting the data.By cutting back on this sort of admin, you could free up members of your team to focus on more important tasks, like following up on valuable leads.

Reduce manual work and reclaim time

Advanced integrations can help your business to cut back on costs, too. The key contributor to this comes from the reduction of manual work, which in turn results in lower labour costs. Thanks to automations, tasks like data entry, reporting, and invoicing can be heavily reduced. But the cost savings don’t stop there. You could end up needing fewer software licences if you can consolidate some of your SaaS systems when integrating. Or you can potentially cut back on costly errors caused by manual data entry, which cost both time and money. And you can boost customer retention thanks to an improved customer experience via streamlined support and invoicing, reducing your customer churn rate.So integrating can cut costs in various ways across the board for your company, giving you more money to use elsewhere to promote business growth and development.

Cut hidden costs across teams and tools

Plug-and-play integrations seem convenient and quick to implement at first glance because they’re designed and built for the masses, not your business needs. They usually come with pre-defined functionality and (more often than not) poor design and UX, so you’ll find it difficult to tailor them to your workflows, customer journeys, or user experience. This will result in a disconnect between your digital products. Your CRM, website, and internal systems may speak to one another, but they won’t truly ‘talk’ to one another because they’re not aligned or efficient.Let’s look at an example. You may want to trigger a personalised onboarding sequence when a user signs up to your website, which pulls in data from various SaaS platforms. But, your out-of-the-box integration doesn’t have the functionality for custom data fields, so you get stuck with a watered-down version of what you really need.Even if you decide to use a SaaS platform’s native API, you’ll have your wings clipped by the API’s scope. Some data endpoints might be read-only, batch processes can be delayed, or some features just aren’t available via the API. So you’ll technically have a connected system, but the flexibility and customisation of what you can achieve is limited.Bespoke integrations are designed and built entirely around your business and its workflows. From the way your business operates, to what your customers and users expect, to the efficiencies you want to gain by integrating. You get complete control over how the integration functions, the design, and the logic behind it to bring together your systems to work in harmony.Want to sync your customer data in real-time between your website, CRM, and ERP with custom field mapping? Or pull data from a third-party system to dynamically display pricing in your customer portal? It’s all possible with an advanced integration.Beyond the functionality benefits, a bespoke integration is built to be robust and scalable, so it grows with your business. You won’t need to rely on temporary workarounds or third-party plugins that might break; you’re investing in a long term digital solution.

Aligned with your business goals

Automation is probably one of the key features of an SaaS integration. It underpins the whole idea of integrating your systems. Being able to automate some of your business’s processes can save your team valuable time. Automations allow your data to move instantly between your SaaS systems and your digital products. So you’ll not need to wait for overnight exports or manual updates. You’re always working with live information. Forget having to sync that data; your integration does that now. <a href="https://www.kerrconsulting.com/unlocking-the-benefits-average-roi-on-moving-to-cloud-based-software-solutions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kerr Consulting found</a> that many businesses say they save around 40% of their time by automating routine tasks through SaaS integrations with their digital products.

Turn disconnected data into automated workflows

Because bespoke integrations are built around you and your customers, we can create a seamless and personalised user experience on your website. Whether that’s real-time account information, customised dashboards that dynamically pull in live data, or live product availability, the possibilities are endless, and all a great way to give your users the best possible experience.This also helps cement a strong relationship with customers because you set yourselves apart from competitors who lag behind in these user experience areas.

Provide a seamless, personalised customer experience

We build our advanced bespoke integrations using our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday Middleware</a>, our flexible connection hub that sits between your SaaS systems and your <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop">website, portal, or app</a>. Thanks to its flexibility, we can scale up your integrations as your business grows. So, if your business decides to start using a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Digital Asset Management</a> system like Bynder, or you introduce a new CRM system like Monday.com, we can link those up to your digital products with ease, so your data keeps flowing without interruption, and you can streamline your workflows.Or, if you need to scale down because you’ve moved data across to one of your other SaaS systems, our Faraday Middleware allows for that too. So your SaaS systems are always flexing with your business.

Scale with confidence, not complexity

Our advanced SaaS integrations are proven to save businesses time and money. Just take a look at our case studies, like <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">Harwin</a>. They’ve seen incredible results for both them and their customers.If you’re ready to move beyond disjointed SaaS tools and start scaling your business, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch for a free integration consultation</a>.

See what an advanced integration looks like in action

Compatibility is probably one of the most common issues when it comes to <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">integrating your SaaS system</a>, especially if you’re trying to integrate with other third-party software. So, compatibility problems like mismatched naming conventions, syncing issues, or poor lead segmentation can create endless headaches or require lots of fiddly admin to resolve. Some SaaS systems, like Salesforce, can also have problems connecting with some older versions of Microsoft Outlook.An advanced bespoke integration can help mitigate compatibility issues because you have complete control of where the data points to and from. And there’s also functionality to manually—as well as automatically—synchronise data, so data transfer is seamless.

1. Compatibility

Depending on the SaaS enterprise software you’re using, accessing API documentation can be tricky, and then trying to find the details you need within that can be time-consuming. This can cause lengthy delays, bugs, and other technical issues. This can be even more complex if you’re trying to share data between different SaaS systems, for example, HubSpot and <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce</a>.When we build our advanced bespoke integrations, we use our custom Si Middleware to facilitate the connections, so we don’t need to track down API documentation, and more importantly, our clients don’t need to worry about finding it either. Our Si Middleware is built and maintained by us, so we know it like the back of our hand, so if there are any issues, we can quickly identify and fix them without having to refer to complex documentation.

2. API Documentation

As your business grows and expands, you’ll more than likely come to rely on your SaaS software more and more. So, your integration needs to scale and adapt to suit. This can bring with it some very technical challenges, and often out-of-the-box API integrations limit what you can do, or your agency will struggle to push beyond the boundaries of what they’re already using. This leaves you with one option: advanced bespoke integration.With an advanced bespoke integration, you can introduce or remove SaaS system connections, so as your business grows, you can keep your data flowing smoothly between your various SaaS solutions. And, if you find the business needs to move to a different SaaS system, that can easily be connected too. So you won’t need to go through the pain of a full rebuild, or spend more of your marketing budget on rebuilding parts of your existing system.

3. Scalability

When it comes to data capture via forms, out-of-the-box integration solutions seem like a great option, but what about security? Data that’s collected from forms using out-of-the-box integrations can easily be manipulated and modified, which creates all sorts of data security issues for businesses, especially when it comes to GDPR. These standardised forms are also susceptible to spam bots, meaning your database will quickly fill up with useless data.An advanced integration improves security by allowing for secure authentication and spam protection, so you won’t have to spend hours sifting through data to ensure it’s valid. You’ll also know the data is secure and safe. One less thing to worry about.

In terms of performance, fetching and serving data is a key area where your integration needs to be quick and seamless. Relying on an out-of-the-box integration means you’re also relying on a third-party API, which can be slow at getting the data you and your users need to the right places.We’ve built our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday Middleware</a> to handle all of this for us with our advanced bespoke integrations. We’ve streamlined the API so it’ll only be using what it needs, so data transfer is rapid with little to no delay. This has a huge benefit for both your business and your users. For you, it means the data you update elsewhere is virtually instantly updated everywhere else, and for your users it means they’re always seeing the latest, most up-to-date information available.

Lab Notes