SME Digitalisation Evaluation
Evidence that informed a decision not to invest
- Starting point
Evaluate the proposition
A developer-built working concept. Agency recruited; I conducted the study.
- Evidence / constraint
Identify the mismatch
Customer digital readiness fell short of the tool’s requirements, which the Product Owner verified with the provider.
- Decision
Recommend stopping
We recommended not proceeding. The business discontinued the initiative.
| Role | Product Designer. I designed the screens, owned the research plan and recruit criteria, and worked with an external agency on the moderated evaluation. |
|---|---|
| Context | An anonymous software vendor exploring a digitalisation tool for small and medium businesses, based on website and competitor analytics. |
| Users | SME owners and staff, the target of the proposed tool. |
| Timeframe | Working proof of concept built by a developer, then a moderated evaluative study. |
| What I owned | Screen design for the proof of concept, the research plan, the recruit criteria, oversight of the study, and the recommendation to the product owner. |
| Status | The study showed target businesses had insufficient traffic, and some had no website at all. The product owner confirmed the provider's minimum traffic requirements, we recommended not to proceed, and the business stopped the initiative. |
The challenge
An anonymous software vendor wanted to help small and medium businesses digitalise, with a tool that could point at a business's existing web presence and analytics. The idea had enough promise on paper that a developer built a working proof of concept. There was no AI involved at that stage; it was a plain product question about whether the market was actually there.
My role
I designed the screens and owned the research side. I wrote the research plan and the recruit criteria, and an external agency ran a moderated evaluative study with a group of the target businesses. The practical participant count was around a dozen; I have not published an exact figure because I am recalling it after the fact.
- Screen design for the working proof of concept.
- Research plan and recruit criteria for the evaluative study.
- Synthesis of the findings into a recommendation for the product owner.
What the study found
The study showed the target businesses were far earlier in digitalisation than the product assumed. Traffic was insufficient, and some had no website at all, which meant the tool had little to work from and the businesses themselves had limited reason to adopt it.
The product owner confirmed the provider's minimum traffic requirements. My recommendation was to not proceed: the value would be too small and the risk of frustrating the target users was real.
Evidence sequence (reconstructed)
I do not have the original deliverables, so this is a retrospective reconstruction of the sequence, kept simple on purpose:
- Tool idea formed from website and competitor analytics.
- Working proof of concept built, with my screen design.
- Moderated evaluative study with target SMEs, recruited to my criteria and run by an external agency.
- Findings showed low traffic and some businesses with no website.
- Provider minimum traffic requirements confirmed by the product owner.
- Recommendation not to proceed, and the business stopped the initiative.
Outcome and reflection
The outcome was that the initiative stopped. I count that as a good outcome for a research plan: we learned before investing in a build. I did not measure any savings, and I do not claim the study saved money. The honest statement is that the evidence changed the decision before further spend.
This case and the marketplace work both sit at the meeting point of research and product design. They are about deciding what not to build as much as what to build.
Methodology grounding: Moderated usability evaluation (external agency, my plan and criteria); proof of concept development.