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Technical Account Manager

Andy Mardell

In simplest terms, it&#39;s the integration of technology throughout a business, replacing slow, more manual ways of working with digital systems that do the job better, faster, and all over more efficiently. But from thinking about digital transformation strategies and plotting roadmaps, to considering different digital technologies, the change can feel overwhelming. Wouldn&#39;t it be easier to stick with what you know? You&#39;re used to it, after all.Interesting thought, but no. In this case change is good.Unless your processes are up to date and you honestly can&#39;t think of a single thing that doesn&#39;t give you a bit of a headache, there&#39;s plenty that digital transformation can do for your business. And as a rather knowledgeable bunch who enable said transformation, we&#39;re here not just to advise you on what opportunities you have, but to deliver the solution too.

As excited as you are to get stuck in, it&#39;s easy for your enthusiasm to turn into a runaway train, or derail entirely, if you don&#39;t know where you&#39;re going. Before moving on to the &#39;how&#39;, or even the &#39;what&#39;, it&#39;s important to know the &#39;why&#39;. Why do you need to focus on transformation? Because meeting customer expectations and adapting to their needs is now a critical issue. Why does it matter for your business? Because in an increasingly digital world, change happens fast and you need to be able to move with it at pace to at the very least keep up with your competitors.Picking apart your motivations in these early stages means you&#39;re building a much stronger understanding of what to focus on in the exploration stage.

Starting with the important question

While you&#39;re planning the next step for your business, it&#39;s the perfect chance to do more than just ask a few basic questions in a briefing. In our experience, some of the best solutions are <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover/workshops">discovered through workshops</a> with your team, helping gauge a deeper understanding of what problems you&#39;re trying to solve and how to set you up for success.After that, we carry out <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover/research">our own research</a>, exploring everything from technologies and platforms to user behaviour and design trends to help us formulate the ideal solution to challenges you&#39;re facing.This process was invaluable for our work building <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/wightlink">Wightlink&#39;s user-centric website</a>, where we held regular workshops to understand their pain points and requirements, as well as to discuss key phases of the design and build. While traditional user testing revealed the problems, these workshop sessions held on the actual ferry crossings helped discover why they persisted.

Don't skimp on the discovery phase

Customer research is one thing, but you can&#39;t move forward with the right solutions without first auditing your systems. When done right, this phase can spot transformation gaps and unearth inefficiencies, financial waste, chaotic processes and workflows, giving you a better idea of what areas you need to focus on for proper long-term planning.From tech stacks to workflows, a digital transformation audit is intentionally broad to touch on multiple different areas of your business. You might find that software doesn&#39;t cover your needs anymore, outdated hardware is no longer secure, or that your systems are disconnected. Process mapping also helps you see what might otherwise stay invisible, flagging bottlenecks, jumbled responsibilities and where you can streamline workflows, helping your team communicate clearer.Shining a light on the problem parts is always nerve wracking, but well worth doing – and it&#39;s why our clients trust us to guide them through it.

Make time for a proper audit

With all that data gathered, now you can get on with the exciting bit: finding what will not only transform your business, but keep the door open for future improvements too.In our case, when we’ve collected all the necessary information we’ll design a comprehensive solution tailored to the specific needs of your business. Then once we’ve walked you through our findings, recommendations and overall solution, we’ll make sure we’re all aligned with clear requirements and goals, whether you’re looking to improve processes or develop a whole new site, CMS or app. After that, we can focus on bringing your project to life.<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/tilt">Take Tilt, for example</a>. When Howden came to us, they wanted an experience that matched the expectations of modern customers whilst also operating within a regulated insurance environment. The challenge wasn&#39;t just in building an app, but to establish a foundation that could support a new way of operating and have a platform capable of evolving in a way that was predictive, not just responsive.

Plotting your digital transformation journey

Ultimately change is a fact of life. It can be held up but it can&#39;t be stopped, and you don&#39;t want to end up on the wrong side of it compared to your competitors. So when you&#39;re considering your digital transformation journey, it&#39;s not just about focusing on that first stop, but having the insight to look to the next one and the one after that.It&#39;s exactly how we future-proofed <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">leading connector manufacturer Harwin</a>. By rebuilding their website from the ground up, Harwin&#39;s various systems now all work together through our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">secure Faraday middleware</a>, keeping products and stock up to date and website speeds 90% faster for a fantastic customer experience. No need for manual updates. A single source of truth for products. And with a 97% increase in filter interaction since launch, we know customers are using the changes implemented.diviD

A more harmonious, future-proof way of working

If you’re fed up of feeling slowed down by frustrating processes, get in touch. We’d love to chat about what the future looks like for your business and help you figure out what to do about it.

Not sure where to start?

For over <a href="https://www.saasacademy.com/blog/saas-statistics" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">80% of businesses</a>, a SaaS system has become a core part of their day-to-day operations, with larger organisations of <a href="https://financesonline.com/saas-software-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">10,000+ employees using an average of 447</a> SaaS systems within their businesses. This can quickly become an admin nightmare, a data disaster, and a costly expense. Check out the top time and money savings perks below.

Nobody likes tedious data admin, and managing data stored across multiple SaaS systems can be a chore to keep on top of and maintain. This could be product data stored in various systems, images and videos stored in a digital asset management system like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Bynder</a>, and customer data stored somewhere else like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce</a> or HubSpot. It can quickly become messy, clunky, and confusing.By automating tasks like data entry, invoicing, and reporting with an advanced SaaS integration, you can reduce the need for manual work, freeing up team members across different areas of the business so they can focus on more important things, like business growth and development. In turn, this also cuts back on labour costs, freeing up budget to be spent elsewhere.

Less manual labour = lower labour costs

It might not seem like a direct benefit for you, but integrating can improve your customers’ user experience when they’re browsing your website, portal, or app. We can dovetail various smaller integrations into your wider infrastructure, like ElasticSearch, which can help to bring users the data they’re searching for quicker. In doing so, your users are able to access information and products quicker, meaning there’s less time spent supporting customers behind the scenes.<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">We’ve done it for clients like </a><a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">Harwin</a>, and they’ve seen some outstanding results. For example, thanks to the ElasticSearch database with Salesforce, we’re able to return filtered results of their 7,000+ products almost instantly.

Speedier user experiences

With so many SaaS systems available, it’s highly likely your business has the same data in multiple places. When this data needs updating, it has to be done manually, which often leads to mistakes that cost time and money.Integrating your SaaS systems helps to centralise all your data into one place, like Salesforce. So if there are updates, you only need to make the change once. This then synchronises across all the various different places the data is used, like your website. By only updating the data once, you massively reduce the risk of human error. It also means you know the data is always consistent and up-to-date across the board, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies in data across different platforms.

Reduce costly errors

Did you know that <a href="https://zylo.com/blog/reducing-saas-license-waste/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">over 50% of SaaS licences go unused</a> because of duplicated functionality? This costs businesses on average about £15m+ each year. A lot of SaaS systems provide similar tools and services, and with disjointed SaaS systems, you’re more than likely duplicating functionality, so you’ll essentially be paying twice (or more) for services that do the same thing. For example, both Salesforce and Sage CRM offer marketing automations and sales forecasting. But because they’re not talking to one another, you could be stuck using both systems.Integrating your SaaS systems means you’ll no longer need to juggle multiple platforms because you can consolidate some of them into one, which then reduces your software costs.There are more benefits here too. Beyond cost savings, you’ll also be cutting back on the risk of data entry errors and streamlining the tools your team needs to use to do their jobs.

Fewer software licences

When it comes to business decision making, time can be a key factor in ensuring the decision is relevant and effective. Sometimes, these decisions are based on data, so accessing up-to-date data quickly and efficiently can be make or break when it comes to decision making.With a fully integrated SaaS system, you’ll be able to access real-time data as it’s shared between each system, giving you the data insights you need—fast. This results in quicker, smarter decision-making, and fewer costly misjudgements.

Faster decision making

Many CRM SaaS systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Monday.com can play a key role in your customers’ experience when dealing with your business, even if you think they don’t realise it.Disjointed SaaS systems often lead to an equally disjointed customer experience. Integrating your SaaS enterprise systems can help to improve this by streamlining support and communications, and simplifying and speeding up invoicing. Your customers will undoubtedly see the benefits, helping to retain your customers and reduce churn.

Better customer retention

While the upfront cost of integrating your SaaS enterprise systems might seem daunting, it pays for itself in benefits by boosting efficiency, reducing human error, and optimising resources. And all of this gives you and your team back the time to focus on growing the business and building on relationships with your existing customers and clients.At Si digital, when we integrate your SaaS systems, we use our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday™ framework</a> to define tangible goals and KPIs that align with your business to help you maximise efficiency and effectiveness across the board.If you want to up your integration game, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">check out our services</a> to see how we can help. Or <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a> if you’re ready to start a conversation.

The bottom line

Have a read of some of our other articles

How integrating your SaaS systems can save you time and money

Lead Backend Developer

Richard Keen

Middleware is the software that acts as a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">bridge between systems</a>, applications and services, helping play a critical part in how digital ecosystems work. Or, in even simpler terms, it&#39;s the translator that helps different processes, systems, components and applications talk to each other.Think of it like a computer hub connecting your mouse and keyboard to your laptop, helping all the different components talk to each other so you can enjoy a smoother experience.

Let&#39;s first ask another question: &quot;Can operating systems, IT, software and apps run without middleware?&quot; The answer is yes. But without middleware, developers need to find a way to connect their systems together, usually by bespoke connectors. That doesn&#39;t sound too bad for one or two implementations, but it can end up feeling overwhelming and chaotic to run in no time.Rather than having to navigate the mess to find the connection between your start and end point, middleware provides the common layer that understands what either end needs. It ensures that systems can interact without having to know each other&#39;s complexities, making development simpler, more flexible and scalable.

Why use middleware?

As digital worlds develop and customer expectations rise, the days of simply-connected websites are long gone. Now with various different platforms and SaaS tools, every change could mean a costly redevelopment. But middleware unifies these services to all users. Meaning that when changes happen, such as moving your website from HubSpot to Salesforce or upgrading your warehouse management system, your customers won&#39;t even notice. Done and dusted.Middleware integration improves communication and acts differently depending on what job you need it to do. Enterprise middleware, for example, is designed to connect various business systems and business software integration like CRM, inventory, and accounting. Helping data flow seamlessly between them so that when a sale happens, inventories update and finances adjust – all without manual input.From message-oriented middleware (MOM) and games engines, to transaction processing (TP) and portals, middleware is the ultimate solution to modern digital challenges. Regardless of whether you&#39;re running a legacy system or starting from scratch and whether your business is large, medium or small.Another important category is application programming interface (API) middleware, which is commonly used in modern applications. Where API gateways act as an entry point to access backend services, middleware often manages these interactions and checks for anything out of the ordinary. Making sure communications stay secure, efficient and consistent.

An unseen hero

Where middleware is designed to sit in the background, you might not realise how or where it helps in the day-to-day running of your business. From mitigating complexity to reducing development time, it does more than simply streamline operations.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Consistent, accurate data</h3>Having a centralised system means you don’t have to hunt for up-to-date data through multiple streams, reducing admin time for manual entry. Your data will be correct in real-time, everywhere you need it to be. For example, if you update your address on your website, that is then synced across the CRM, accounts platform, warehouse platforms, and more. And like most great things in life, consistency is key for better processes and fewer headaches.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Flexible and adaptable</h3>A unified system means changes and updates are no longer a pain to deal with. Your business can switch platforms with ease as you grow and your needs change, such as moving from a digital asset management (DAM) system like Frontify to Bynder. This flexibility gives you more freedom to move to what works best for your business without having to worry about being locked in, scaling with you as and when your business grows.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Cost efficiency</h3>Fewer services to manage means you can reduce unnecessary spending. In establishing middleware, sometimes it turns out that some SaaS systems your business has in place overlap. In these cases, middleware can help you trim the fat. Likewise, with fewer specialised processes and customer applications needed, it may reduce project costs and be less expensive to maintain overall.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Making the complex, clear</h3>Reducing operational chaos means fewer tangles and less overall confusion when it comes to processes and data. For your business, that might look like using standardised tools and templates, simplifying messaging, and helping your teams know that they can trust that the data they’re seeing is accurate.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Connecting bespoke products</h3>Middleware also provides the ideal option for getting more tailored products to work with the rest of your infrastructure. Steering you away from being blocked in by a one-size-fits-all solution and allowing more personalised integration. In fact, we used middleware to help BMW connect their app to an API for a telematics tracking product that people fit in their cars. Allowing us to surface information like car vitals, speed data, cornering data and more directly into an app for users. Read the full case study here.

The benefits of middleware

A fantastic example of this is when we used our own <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">secure Faraday</a> middleware to help one of our clients – leading connector <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">manufacturer Harwin</a> – refresh their online presence, modernise their platform and fix technical issues that had built up over time. And with 4,000+ products to sort through, they needed a website that would make finding the right product clear for customers, too.Now Harwin&#39;s website syncs website data with their Salesforce database, always keeping details up to date. Whenever the team updates a product, those changes appear almost instantly, and with Salesforce in the loop all data is easy to find.

Future-proofing digital presence

It&#39;s only natural that, since middleware bridges communication, it also shines when it comes to improving security. As it sits between systems, it&#39;s in the perfect position to implement security policies and protect against threats. From authenticating users to authorising access, encrypting data and verifying credentials, requests reach this digital checkpoint before they can pass on to the juicy, more valuable areas.Another concern with having various different systems and SaaS tools is dealing with dozens of access points connected directly to your website. That&#39;s a lot of potential vulnerabilities. This is also where Faraday works in our clients&#39; favour, centralising those connections. A single, middleware layer means fewer entry points and total control over how your data flows and what each system can access. Keeping things visible and secure.

Critical security

Got a project in mind that could use some middleware intervention? <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">Drop us a line. We&#39;re always keen to chat.</a>

Middleware made simple

5 key considerations for digital transformation

Founder & Managing Director

Steve Piper

What happens when your website stops working for you and starts working against you? Whether it&#39;s a reduction in time spent on the website, low conversions, or you&#39;ve simply moved on in your business&#39;s wants and needs, it&#39;s best not to bury your head in the sand. Have a look for these 8 signs it&#39;s time for a website redesign.

As much as we’d like to think people can look past it, first impressions of your website absolutely matter. If you find your bounce rates are higher than you&#39;d like – and you&#39;re sure it’s not because visitors found what they needed in record time – it&#39;s worth investigating why. Elements like trustworthiness, confusing layouts and buried information can make all the difference between users clicking through to the next page or tapping out altogether. Time is precious, especially in the eyes of customers.

01. People visit but they don't stay

If you&#39;ve built a website and customers or potential clients still have little or no idea what your business does, it&#39;s not only a big problem but a missed opportunity. Rather than having at least basic understanding on first contact, your sales team has to pitch and explain the &#39;why&#39; instead of following up with the &#39;wow&#39;. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/uk/business/software/website-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">As 78% of small business owners</a> in the UK have a website for their business, with 83.5% of those saying it plays a big part in their business, websites should qualify leads and build confidence. All while providing a reliable point of reference for further reading, ideally before anyone picks up the phone.

02. Your sales team is doing the heavy lifting for your site

Following that point, making users hunt for information is tedious, frustrating, and a surefire way to have them backing out before they find what they need. Likewise, outdated information leaves them with an untrustworthy impression of your business and the experience they can expect by engaging. As you change products or services, update details, and find new ways to <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/design/digital-design">improve the user experience</a>, the best thing to do is keep your website up to date. For more information on why UX and UI iteration is so important, <a href="https://sidigital.co/lab-notes/iterative-ux-and-ui-practices">have a quick read here</a>.

03. Your website doesn't say what you do

If you&#39;re going through the effort of making an up-to-date site that looks great on a large screen, it&#39;s vital you&#39;ve also considered your mobile users. <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1358314/online-shopper-device-preference-uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">As reported in the second quarter of 2025</a>, mobile phones were the preferred device among online shoppers in the United Kingdom. So if you’re not considering all audiences, especially those used to a smooth mobile experience, an outdated, pinch-to-zoom design that&#39;s a pain to navigate and tough to read will likely turn people away. Your mobile site should be optimised to fit the format, allowing potential customers to focus on what they&#39;re reading rather than trying their patience with inaccurate hit targets and microscopic text.

04. It's not made for mobile

If there&#39;s one unignorable death rattle for websites, it&#39;s wheezing loading times. In the current technological age we&#39;re living in, users just want things to work – and when they don&#39;t, they&#39;ll find something else that will. <a href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/7450973?hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">As Google notes</a>, 53% of visits are likely abandoned if pages take longer than three seconds to load, so if your team notices your site is slow, visitors will too. And their first instinct won&#39;t be to give it a moment, it&#39;ll be to leave. A few seconds of loading time might not sound like a lot, but it&#39;s enough for people to get an impression of your brand, and that&#39;s not fair to you or them. Google&#39;s also not a fan and will penalise websites as a result, favouring sites that perform better.

05. It's slow and not subtle about it

Though we&#39;ve already covered why it&#39;s important to keep your website up to date, in this case it&#39;s about keeping up with your competitors as well. You might be updating information or considering your brand position in the market, but if you&#39;re still working with a website that looks like it belongs in a different age you&#39;ll stand out for the wrong reasons. Regardless of how strong your information is, your site design is what users will initially focus on, even if they&#39;re not aware they&#39;re doing it. A site that doesn&#39;t keep pace may get left behind altogether.

06. Your website and business are out of sync

Nothing shouts &quot;you might need a website redesign&quot; quite like cringing when it&#39;s shared with current or prospective clients. If sales conversations are bracketed with apologies, URLs are shared with caveats, or you’re just linking users to the information they need rather than the homepage for a browse, you don&#39;t need a diagnosis – you need a plan. On the sunny side, this means you can spend your time thinking about what you want your new site to look like instead of debating whether you need a website refresh at all. And that’s the fun part.

07. You're embarrassed to send people to it

With cyber attacks more active than ever, cyber security is a justifiable concern for businesses internet-wide. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2025/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2025#chapter-6-cyber-crime" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Approximately 283,000 businesses</a> have been a victim of at least one cyber crime in the last 12 months, with phishing as the most common type (93% of affected businesses). From spam emails and untrustworthy links to database breaches, it&#39;s in your interest to keep your business, customers and users safe online. That means even after considering and implementing the right cyber security for your needs, anything you have in place should always run in its latest version. Elements like outdated plugins and software provide an easy entry point for cybercriminals, opening your operation up to compliance risks, financial loss, malware, and more.

08. You've had a security scare

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>How do you know when your website needs a redesign?</h3>If it&#39;s been a few years since you reviewed your website, it&#39;s a good idea to evaluate performance, UX and UI to improve outdated design. Think about your business needs and whether they’re being met.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What is the three-second rule for websites?</h3>A well-known principle, the three-second rule for website design reflects how long you&#39;ve got until users hit the back button and continue on their way. Three seconds. If your website doesn&#39;t make a good first impression, it probably won&#39;t get the chance to make a second one.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>What are the main signs of an outdated website?</h3>Besides telltale visual elements that date websites like a time capsule, outdated information and poor responsiveness and loading speeds are your biggest red flags.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Should I redesign or rebuild my website?</h3>Be honest, you&#39;d be creeped out if we said yes and how. The best thing to do if you&#39;re asking this question is to evaluate your site performance from a technical, visual and experiential level. Are there just a couple of areas that you can improve on or do you need to start from scratch?

FAQs

See whether a website redesign or refresh is for you. If you get top marks, well, feel free to brag.

Download our free UX & UI Self-Assessment tool

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?

8 ways to tighten website and app security

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

8 signs it's time for a website redesign

Lead Designer

Sam Leonard-Rendell

Plenty of articles online tell you your <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/design/branding">brand should</a> be consistent. Use the same colours, same fonts, same logo. All the time. Everywhere. And it’s not bad advice. But it’s not the whole picture.<a href="https://brandingstrategyinsider.com/the-invisible-power-of-brand-consistency/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">71% of consumers</a> say inconsistent branding causes confusion, but the real culprit isn&#39;t inconsistency. It&#39;s the lack of a clear identity to be consistent with. The confusion isn’t caused by inconsistency alone. It’s caused by a brand that doesn’t know what it stands for. And that’s a cohesion problem, not a consistency problem.Consistency is about rigid rules and unbreakable brand boundaries. Cohesion is identity. One tells your design team what to do, while the other shows your audience who you are.

Consistency is all about being the same across every touchpoint. The logo is always the same size. The hex code value never changes. Every email uses the same sign-off.Cohesion is about pulling everything in the same direction, even when it looks or sounds different. Your social post doesn’t read the same as your website, because it shouldn’t. But both should feel unmistakably like you.Think about how you speak. You don’t talk to a prospective client in the same way you talk to a colleague you’ve worked with for six years. But you’re still recognisably the same person in both conversations. That’s cohesion.A consistent brand follows its rules. A cohesive brand doesn&#39;t need to.

Consistency vs cohesion, what's the difference?

In our experience, more brands accumulate rather than build. A logo gets designed first. A tagline gets added later. The website content is written by someone different from the social content. The tone changes depending on who’s writing. And over time, the brand becomes a patchwork. Technically consistent in places, but fundamentally incoherent.<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-survey-finds-brands-struggle-to-keep-up-with-content-demand-personalized-content-could-increase-revenue-by-48-on-average-301362339.html">68% of companies</a> report brand consistency contributed to revenue growth of 10% or more. What they&#39;re actually describing is the commercial value of a brand that knows what it is, not from enforcing a style guide.It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into, and it’s not always a quick fix. But recognising it is the first step, and knowing what to look for makes it a lot easier.

So why do so many brands get it wrong?

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What are the giveaways that your brand is lacking cohesion? <h3 style='text-align: start;'>1. Your brand looks different depending on where people find you</h3>This isn’t just about visuals; we’re talking tone too. Your website sounds corporate. Socials sound casual. Sales decks sound like they’re written by a totally different company. That’s not a consistency problem; it’s a cohesion problem. Brands that maintain cohesive presentation across all their platforms see up to <a href="https://brandingstrategyinsider.com/the-invisible-power-of-brand-consistency/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">23% more revenue</a>. And they’re <a href="https://www.envive.ai/post/brand-voice-consistency-statistics-in-ecommerce" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2.4x more likely</a> to outgrow competing brands.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>2. You&#39;ve evolved, but your brand is still where you were three years ago</h3>When businesses evolve, it’s easy to forget to evolve your brand, too. Introducing new services, new clients, and new ambitions means your brand and positioning can quickly feel irrelevant. <a href="https://www.crowdspring.com/blog/branding-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">74% of S&amp;P 100 companies rebrand</a> within their first seven years of business, showing how business changes impact brand direction. Fostering business growth demands that your brand keeps pace too.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>3. You&#39;re attracting the wrong clients, or not attracting the right ones</h3>If your visual identity and tone of voice don’t clearly communicate and reflect who you are and what you stand for, you’ll end up either attracting everyone or attracting nobody. Both of these can waste valuable time and resources internally. <a href="https://www.crowdspring.com/blog/branding-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">64% of consumers</a> form loyalty to a brand based on shared values. If your values aren’t visible, you’re invisible to the people you actually want.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>4. You feel uncomfortable sharing your own materials</h3>If you’ve found yourself apologising for <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/develop/websites">your website</a>, or reluctantly sending out marketing materials because they don’t feel good enough, that’s the clearest sign your brand isn’t up to standard. If you’re embarrassed by your own brand identity, your customers and clients are probably questioning it too.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>5. Your competitors have moved and you haven&#39;t</h3>If you’ve noticed your competitors shifting in new directions and feel more credible than you, even if your work or products are better, that’s a clear brand cohesion gap that’s costing your business.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>6. Internally, the team is confused about your brand</h3>If your team is asking questions like “which logo do I use?” or “what tone should this be written in?”, you’re not noticing a training problem; you’ve spotted a brand clarity problem.When your brand works across multiple departments, like sales, marketing, and digital, the materials they produce should look and sound like they belong to the same company. If they don’t, then you’ve got a cohesion problem.<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-survey-finds-brands-struggle-to-keep-up-with-content-demand-personalized-content-could-increase-revenue-by-48-on-average-301362339.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">77% of companies</a> regularly see off-brand content coming from their business that’s been created internally. So this is a widespread problem, and one that’s a telltale sign of brand cohesion issues.

The real signs your brand needs attention

A rebrand done well isn’t about starting from scratch or chasing what’s on trend. It’s about building a brand with a clear enough identity that it can flex without fragmenting.Every rebrand starts with positioning, finding your business’s white space.

Cohesion is what a rebrand should actually deliver

Full rebrands should take between 12 to 18 months from start to finish. It’s a long and highly considered process, not just a simple logo swap. It’s about spending the time getting the brand into the place it needs to be for the next decade.

There’s a clear distinction between a rebrand and a brand refresh. A refresh makes sense if the foundations are solid, but the execution has drifted. Fixes could be as simple as updating visuals, tightening content and copy, or a revitalised tone of voice.A rebrand makes sense if the foundations are the issue. An unclear position, a name or identity that doesn’t make sense, or a brand that never properly fitted in in the first place.

Rebrand or refresh? Which do you actually need?

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Strategy</h3>The foundational stage that everything else is built on. This is a vital stage, and comes before anything visual or verbal is explored. Rebrands need to start with the honest questions, like “where is the business now?” and “where does it need to be?” and “what’s stopping the brand from getting it there?”. This stage is pivotal to the success of any rebrand, and starts with a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/discover">comprehensive discovery phase</a>, which dives into the competitor landscape, industry insights and clearly defining what a successful brand looks like for the business. Without this stage, everything else is complete guesswork.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Positioning</h3>Once you establish the groundwork, you need to position your brand. This is about finding and owning the white space in your market, who you’re for, who you’re not for, what you stand for, and why customers should choose you over your competitors.Positioning can often feel like an uncomfortable process because you have to work at a level of specificity that most businesses find awkward. But it’s important to specify at this stage. Trying to appeal to everyone and everything is the quickest route to a brand that resonates with nobody. And this is where a lot of brands stall, because committing to a clear position means accepting that it won’t be for everyone.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Visual identity</h3>This is probably the most exciting stage of a rebrand – bringing the foundational work to life with a logo, colour palette, typography, graphic devices, and so much more. The visual identity phase should reflect the strategy work that took place before it, not precede it. This is another stage where businesses can often stumble. They start with the visual identity and work backwards, leaving them with a finished brand that looks stunning but feels hollow and fails to resonate with the customers they want.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Tone of voice</h3>Beyond how your brand visually looks, tone of voice is where brand cohesion lives or dies. Tone of voice defines how your brand sounds across everything from your website, social media, proposals, emails, and even down to error messages on a digital product.A visual identity can be consistent while the tone is all over the place. And it’s that disconnect that people immediately feel, even if they can’t articulate it.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Guidelines</h3>Some agencies create guidelines that are taken as a set of rules, and there are always hardline rules in guidelines. But in reality, guidelines should be a reference point, rather than a hard and fast rule book. Your guidelines should give readers enough clarity to make considered and good decisions independently. They shouldn’t be a list of restrictions that require sign-off on every bit of output. If the guidelines are so complex that nobody is reading them, they’re not working.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>Rollout</h3>One of the most underestimated phases of a rebrand is rollout. Rolling out a new brand is a complex task and requires a deep understanding of the identity. So a rebrand that launches inconsistently immediately undermines all the work.Rollout needs a clear plan to cover every touchpoint and clear internal communication to ensure the team is on the same page as you. You’ll need a realistic timeline too. A full rebrand should take between 12 and 18 months, and a considered rollout should be a methodical part of that timeline, not a single launch moment.

What does a rebrand actually involve?

Brands that endure aren’t the ones with the strictest guidelines. They’re the ones with the clearest sense of who they are. And they’ve got the confidence to express that across every touchpoint, every time.If your brand no longer feels like you, it’s worth <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">having a conversation</a> about it. We help businesses figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and what to do next.

Ready to build something that actually feels like you?

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.

Totally free, no strings attached, we promise.

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

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

Stop chasing brand consistency, and start building brand cohesion

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

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>

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

It’s estimated that around 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women have some form of colour blindness. In the UK, this means that there are approximately 2.7 million people affected, a considerable amount of the population, but they are often forgotten when it comes to designing websites and user interfaces.Here at Si digital we consider user experience and accessibility throughout every project. We use a variety of tools and techniques to help us understand visual impairments and use this knowledge to make our websites more usable and less frustrating for people who are colour blind.

Who is affected?

There are many types of colour blindness with different degrees of severity. It’s a common myth that people with colour blindness only see in black and white. Although this can be true, monochromacy – also known as total colour blindness – is extremely rare, with an estimated 1 in 33,000 people affected. This severe visual impairment only allows an individual to see in greyscale.An important factor to remember is that for most people with colour blindness, distinguishing between different colours is not too difficult; it’s telling the difference between shades and brightness levels of similar colours which causes issues.The more common condition is red-green colour blindness, which is split into two groups. A person with protanomaly has reduced sensitivity to red light. Red, orange, and yellow hues tend to shift towards green and appear less saturated. A person with deuteranomaly has reduced sensitivity to green light and will have difficulty distinguishing between blue, yellow, violet, reds, blues, and greens.

What is colour blindness?

For a long time, the difficulties that arise from colour blindness have been ignored, not only in website design, but also television, movies, and especially video games. There are many cases of users not being able to play a game or being unable to progress because of essential UI elements being indistinguishable to somebody who suffers from colour blindness.Take this example from The Witcher 3...

Colour in the wild

See how the red markers on the floor become near invisible when switching to red-green colour blindness.The game features an ability to use heightened senses to follow scents, track footprints, and find clues. However, the game developers chose a deep red colour as a marker, so there have been many users complaining that they couldn’t see these markers very well (or at all). A simple colour change or the option to change colours would have made this game more accessible.Colour blindness is a matter which needs to be taken seriously due to the high percentage of the population with vision impairments. If your website or application is particularly unoptimised, you could be losing a large amount of customers. For example, if a user can’t differentiate between a series of icons because of clashing colours and lack of contrast, that user could get frustrated and find an alternate service. If that is the experience of every potential customer who suffered from colour blindness, you’re losing over 8% of potential sales – for a business with £10,000,000 in revenue, that company could potentially lose a huge £800,000 in sales.

Although colour blindness can cause huge problems for users, it’s actually quite simple to combat. If you’re aware of the issues, then you’re already halfway there.<h3 style='text-align: start;'>1. Use contrasting colours</h3>Even people who have monochromacy still have a sense of contrast – the scaled difference between light and dark. To ensure your website is readable for people with visual impairments, you must make sure your content contrasts well with your background. For example, black text on a white background will have a high level of contrast and readability. Whereas yellow text on a white background has a low level of contrast and will be barely readable, even for people with full vision!

Designing with colour blindness in mind

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>2. Use different shades rather than multiple colours</h3>A monochromatic colour scheme — not to be confused with full colour blindness, monochromacy – makes use of multiple shades of one colour, rather than using various different colours. This will effectively minimise colour-related frustration, and is a great way to include contrast in your designs. A monochromatic colour scheme doesn’t have to be black and white; using multiple shades of blue, we can create a visually pleasing design with complete readability.

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>3. Experience colour blindness yourself while designing</h3><h4 style='text-align: start;'>Colour blindness simulation in Adobe Photoshop</h4>There are many free tools available that can mimic the effects of colour blindness, allowing you to understand how a colour blind person would see to ensure that your user interfaces work just as you intended them to. Photoshop has its own — slightly hidden away — proof setup feature; simply go to View &gt; Proof Setup, and then you can choose between protanopia and deuteranopia. When you’re done testing, simply switch back to monitor RGB.<h4 style='text-align: start;'>Colour blindness simulation in Figma</h4>Unfortunately, there is no native support for Figma colour testing; however, there are various plugins that allow you to do the exact same thing. We recommend <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1115550442410459794/color-blind" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Color Blind</a>, a free plugin that shows you in real time what people with common colour vision impairments will see.<h4 style='text-align: start;'>Colour blindness simulation in Browser</h4>We use a Google Chrome add-on called <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/colorblindly/floniaahmccleoclneebhhmnjgdfijgg?pli=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Colorblindly</a> that lets you simulate colour blindness on live websites or in a testing environment. This is a handy tool for colour and contrast testing as it offers multiple viewing modes, including full monochromacy.

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>4. Choose colour combinations carefully</h3>Unfortunately, as designers, we don’t always get to choose the colours that we use in our designs; sometimes, we’re limited by brand guidelines. But where possible, it’s wise to choose and test your primary and secondary colours before you establish a brand. Below is a chart of colour combinations that you should avoid using.If in doubt, avoid colour altogether and go for a simple black/white, high-contrast colour scheme!

<h3 style='text-align: start;'>5. Use texture in place of colour</h3>When designing things like graphs and infographics, consider making use of texture or visual patterns to help differentiate between two colours. For example, take the pie chart below. A user with protanopia would find it hard to differentiate between the different slices due to the colours being too similar. However, if we simply add some texture or patterns, the graph is 100% more readable.

Lab Notes