Most teams come to Digital Marmalade when growth exposes gaps in their website and systems. They want releases to move quickly and their existing tools to work together at scale.
If you want smaller releases and fewer failures that improve user experience, start here. This playbook shows five moves you can adopt in a year: AI that proves a lift, low code with guardrails, security by default, platform engineering that cuts cost to change, and a design system that keeps teams aligned. We built this from projects we shipped in production. It is a practical plan for your website and software development teams.
What does future readiness mean for faster marketing sites and dependable CMS and e‑commerce?
Future readiness means you can ship small, safe changes quickly because code quality, release cadence, observability and accessibility are treated as first class engineering standards.
You control this through how you build, test, release, and measure. Run the delivery platform like a product with a named owner to reduce risk on every change. Set these standards across your website and software development work. On large commerce flows, small UX improvements compound, and for Monarch Airlines, improved UX and messaging coincided with +14% annual revenue and +20% ancillary sales.
Which AI features can you ship this year without risking stability?
Start with search, recommendations, auto-tagging and predictive dashboards, and back each with baselines, table-level permissions, request-level caching and a static fallback.
If an AI feature cannot prove a lift against a baseline or fails gracefully, it is not ready to ship. Choose use cases that improve journeys or remove manual effort where you already hold the data.
Start with four practical patterns: natural‑language search so people find content without exact terms, recommendations that lift engagement, auto‑tagging that speeds publishing, and predictive dashboards that flag risks early.
Plan the implementation like any feature. Agree uplift targets and a rollback path before you start. Define data access rules and govern prompts or model settings. Add request-level caching and a simple fallback so pages never blank if a provider is down. Measure conversion, retention, or task time against a baseline.
Proof in practice
- The Telegraph’s revamped puzzle platform contributed to a 58% growth in puzzle subscribers within five months.
- Event Rider Masters triggers personalised Mailchimp campaigns from on‑site behaviour to match content to audience interest.
Digital Marmalade designs and ships these features end to end, from discovery workshops and UX to CMS integration and AI APIs, with safe releases behind feature flags. They are practical upgrades to your website and software development stack.
When should you use low code and when does bespoke code deliver more value?
Use low code for internal workflows and dashboards under design system rules and audit logs, and keep authentication, payments, high-traffic flows and complex logic in the main codebase.
Low code is useful for admin and ops. Use it for dashboards, form heavy portals, workflow automation, and data views for non-technical teams. Keep core product work in professional code for authentication, payments, high-traffic journeys, and complex rules.
Set guardrails so low code does not create unmanaged risk. Use approved components from your design system with shared tokens, run a security review before publishing and keep an audit log, keep versioning and backups with review where supported, and maintain a documented exit plan with an owner.
If a low code app gets weekly edits or more than 100 users, plan the lift into the main codebase. Spartacus, a multi‑tool cybersecurity assessment suite, is a good example of a platform that belongs in code. For operational change, NTT’s lifecycle management platform shows how replacing spreadsheets with a built system improves efficiency and reporting.
Low code should extend your website and software development capacity without fragmenting standards. If teams follow the rules, you gain speed without giving up control.
What is a practical security baseline for new builds?
Treat security as a working practice, not a late step. Set a baseline for every new build and prove it with acceptance criteria.
Baseline for new builds
- Single sign on or multi factor authentication. If SSO is not available, enforce strong passwords and rotation.
- Secrets management and role based access control.
- Input validation, rate limiting, and logging with alerts.
- Dependency scanning in continuous integration and a regular patch cycle.
- Clear data retention and deletion policies that match your regulatory context.
Proof of control
- Run a short threat review in discovery and write two or three realistic misuse cases you will test.
- Add security checks with test evidence to acceptance criteria.
- Record approvals for any configuration that touches personal data.
This keeps security visible, reduces last minute blocks, and lowers rework across website and software development.
How does platform engineering lower cost to change?
At Digital Marmalade, these practices are built into our delivery by default, from CI/CD and IaC to feature flagged releases and observability, so every project benefits.
CI, CD to staging, infrastructure as code, feature level observability, blue green or canary releases and feature flags make releases small, reversible and fast.
Reliable releases are a habit you build, not a tool you buy.
Use continuous integration with automated tests on each change and continuous delivery to a staging environment for small, repeatable releases. Keep infrastructure as code so environments can be rebuilt on demand. Tag telemetry by feature so product teams see impact without paging ops. Release with blue‑green or canary strategies behind feature flags for controlled rollouts.
The outcome is clear ownership and faster cycle time, with simpler rollback. Quiet, frequent releases compound. That is how website and software development scales without drama.
How do design systems keep multi team delivery consistent?
Tokens, a versioned component library, contribution rules and built in accessibility checks give teams a shared source of truth and reduce regressions.
In website and software development, large sites and multi-product portfolios drift when each team moves in isolation.
Build around tokens for colour, type, spacing and states, a versioned component library with usage guidance and contribution rules, and baked‑in accessibility checks for focus order, contrast, inputs and errors.
Teams ship faster with fewer regressions and users get a consistent experience across devices. Designers and engineers share a common source of truth. That keeps website and software development aligned as teams and product lines grow.
Which delivery and UX metrics should leaders track monthly?
Track lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, time to restore service, Core Web Vitals, task completion and security patch age with a named owner and single source of truth.
Lead time for change, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and time to restore service.
Core Web Vitals for public pages that drive revenue or signups.
Task completion and conversion for the journeys that matter most.
Security patch age and the count of untriaged alerts.
These numbers connect delivery health to user experience. They also show if your website and software development work is making improvements where it counts.
Why partner with Digital Marmalade now: faster time to market and end to end delivery with long term support
Get ready for the future by making clear choices now. Use AI where it improves journeys and reduces effort. Apply low code with rules that protect quality. Treat security as a baseline. Invest in platform engineering so releases are small and safe. Build a design system that keeps teams aligned. Do this and your website and software development becomes easier to change.
If you want a plan that fits your context, book a short Strategic Briefing. In a 60 to 90 minute session, we agree goals, KPIs, risks and ownership, then leave you with clear next steps and named owners.