CASE STUDY: My Digital Journey, a web app for SMEs
Some context about the project
My Digital Journey was born out of The Growth Hub in Gloucester. Having secured a government grant, the team was looking to build something fun, informative and easy to use for small businesses across the UK.
The premise was simple: most small businesses are wandering lost in a world of constantly changing technology. My Digital Journey helps people navigate that terrain through meetups, talks and a curated library of free online resources. The thinking behind it is straightforward. Stronger small businesses make for a stronger UK.
This was a collaborative project. I served as UX/UI designer and user researcher, working directly with CEO Tristan Wilkinson, Project Manager James Brown, User Researcher Kate Ainscough and Developer Chris Steel.
Services provided:
- User Research
- Discovery Phase
- Wireframes
- Brand development
- UI design
- Website design & development
- Illustrations
User research
Understanding the needs of small businesses across the UK was the foundation of this project. We needed to gauge their awareness of digital technology and how much weight they placed on it as a driver of growth. Knowing that time is every business owner's most precious resource, we crafted a concise questionnaire and conducted it over the phone with a range of SMEs across the UK.
From those conversations we built a more comprehensive online questionnaire, split into six sections: Leadership & Culture, Technology, Product Development, Business Development, Process & Systems, and Marketing & Media. This helped us identify gaps in each business that My Digital Journey could address through one-on-one sessions, events or online resources.
User and job stories
Drawing on our SME research, I created user and job stories to map out real needs and motivations. The format follows a simple structure: [when ____ (situation), I want to ____ (action/motivation), so that ____ (outcome)]. I developed stories covering both business owners and LEP admins to make sure neither audience was overlooked.
Wireframes
I created wireframes to map out the SME questionnaire, results journey, and online content area for all breakpoints (desktop, tablet and mobile).
Creating My Digital Journey’s brand
I had the rare joy of building a brand entirely from scratch which is something I love. Taking a brand from its initial stages through to final release and beyond is one of the most satisfying things I get to do.
Beyond the My Digital Journey branding itself, it was important that the web app could transition to a white label product easily. I kept colour application minimal and customisation straightforward. That way any Growth Hub or similar organisation wanting to use the technology for their own region could implement it easily.
For imagery I used Creative Commons photography, freely licensed images, that captured the feel of real UK businesses. The plan is to replace these with original photoshoots featuring companies that have genuinely benefited from My Digital Journey.
Typography
For this project I used Source Sans, my go-to Google font for many cost-conscious digital products. It's extremely versatile with excellent readability at any size.
Illustrations
I had a lot of fun creating character illustrations to show how your SME is doing on its digital journey to becoming more technologically savvy - from Digital Wanderer to the Digitally Enlightened.
UI elements
Since this product would be white labelled by most organisations using My Digital Journey, I built all UI elements to be fully colour customisable. This would make it easy for each partner to make the product feel like their own.
Launching the product and website
I designed and developed the My Digital Journey website using Webflow. It's one of my favourite platforms for building bespoke websites. I never work from templates, everything is built from scratch, which gives me far greater control over both the design and the development of the brand.
Webflow's animation capabilities mean I can create some truly impressive websites in a fraction of the usual time, while still having the ability to drop in complex custom code when needed. (I'm still waiting for my kickbacks from Webflow for all the marketing I do for them 😎… call me.)
Future iterations
My Digital Journey is currently building out its digital content library, and at some point that growth will require a rethink of how the whole section is structured. In the meantime they're doing constant testing and gathering feedback. I'm genuinely excited to see how the product evolves and where my involvement takes me as it does.
