What is a digital platform?

Overview

A digital platform is an online environment that brings together content, functionality and data to support a service or a set of activities. It might help students find and apply for courses, allow customers to manage their accounts or give an organisation one place to manage content used across several websites.

The term is also used for marketplaces, social networks and software products. Here, we’re focusing on organisational websites and the connected services behind them: how they help people get things done, and how they fit into the organisation’s day-to-day work.

What can a digital platform include?

The combination of tools and systems will be different for every organisation. A platform might include:

• a content management system (CMS)
• structured content and data
• search and filtering
• user accounts and permissions
• forms and workflows
• ecommerce or online transactions
• personalised content
• connections to other systems, often through application programming interfaces (APIs)
• analytics and reporting

A digital platform doesn’t need all of these things, and a feature checklist is rarely a useful way to define one. Its role in supporting the organisation’s services and operations matters more than any individual piece of technology.

When does a website become a digital platform?

There isn’t a precise point where a website stops being a website and becomes a digital platform. The terms overlap, and many websites could reasonably be described as both.

A website might mainly help people find and understand information, which is a valuable task in its own right. Thinking of it as a platform becomes useful when that information is connected to wider services and processes, such as applications, bookings, account management or publishing across several channels.

The difference isn’t necessarily scale. A large publishing website might technically be simpler than a much smaller platform that connects several systems and supports complex user journeys.

What changes is the role the website plays. Rather than simply communicating what an organisation does, it starts helping to deliver it.

A course application journey in practice

Imagine a university where course details are managed in a central course information system. The website uses that information to populate course pages, search results and filters, helping prospective students compare their options without staff having to update the same details in several places.

When someone chooses a course and starts an application, the platform passes the relevant course details into the application journey. Their submission then reaches the admissions system, where staff can review it without re-entering the information manually.

For the applicant, this should feel like one coherent journey from finding a course to receiving confirmation. Behind it are decisions about content, data ownership, integration, permissions and how staff handle the application. Those relationships are what make it useful to think beyond the individual pages.

What sits behind a digital platform?

The interface people see is only one part of a digital platform. Underneath it can be several layers of content, technology and organisational processes working together.

These parts affect one another. A technical decision can influence what an editor is able to publish, while the way content is structured can affect how easily a user can find it. Building a good platform means considering those relationships together.

The user experience

People shouldn’t need to understand the technology behind a platform to use it. They need navigation that makes sense, useful search, accessible interfaces and clear routes through whatever task they are trying to complete. Different audiences may also need very different things from the same platform.

This is where user experience (UX), accessibility, user research and journey planning become important. They help establish what people actually need before decisions are made about interfaces or technology.

Content and functionality

Content remains a fundamental part of most platforms, but it often needs to do more than sit on individual pages.

Information might appear in search results, listings, filters, related-content areas or personalised experiences. The same piece of information may need to be reused in several places.

Alongside that content could be forms, directories, calculators, search tools, applications, bookings or other functionality. These elements need to work together as part of the same experience rather than feeling like separate additions.

The CMS

Behind many digital platforms is a content management system such as WordPress.

For a simple website, a CMS might mainly provide a way to edit pages. For a larger platform, its role can become much broader.

WordPress can be configured with content types, fields and taxonomies that reflect the information an organisation manages. The Gutenberg block editor then gives editors a way to assemble and edit content using reusable blocks, with templates and controls to guide how those blocks are used.

Together, these can give editors the right tools for the content they manage, making everyday publishing easier and helping maintain consistency as the platform grows.

Integrations and connected systems

A platform may also need to communicate with systems outside the website itself.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems, product databases, booking systems, payment providers, authentication services and other applications can all provide or receive information.

These connections often happen through APIs, allowing systems to exchange information without requiring people to manually copy it between them.

The result can look straightforward to the person using the website even when several different systems are involved behind the scenes.

Why structure matters more as platforms grow

A website with a handful of pages can get away with relatively simple content structures. A platform containing thousands of pieces of information, several content types and multiple user journeys cannot.

As platforms grow, decisions about how information is structured become increasingly important.

This includes thinking about:

• content types and the information each one contains
• relationships between different pieces of content
• categories, tags and taxonomies
• navigation and URL structures
• reusable information
• user roles and permissions
• where information is stored and managed

Information architecture addresses how content is organised, labelled and connected so that people can understand and use it. Alongside it, platform architecture defines where information is managed and how systems and permissions support its use.

Good structure also benefits more than the people visiting the website. Editors need to understand where information belongs, developers need predictable structures they can work with, and other systems may need to access the same information.

Search engines and AI systems can also benefit from content that has meaningful relationships and a clear underlying structure.

The larger and more connected a platform becomes, the harder poor structural decisions are to work around. Planning those relationships early can make the platform easier to use, manage and extend later.

How digital platforms connect with other systems

Most organisations don’t run everything through one piece of software.

Customer information might live in a CRM. Products may be managed in another database. Events could come from a booking system, vacancies from a recruitment platform and payments from a specialist provider.

Trying to recreate all of those systems inside a website would rarely make sense. Instead, a digital platform can act as the point where information and services from different systems come together for the user.

The technical connection is only part of that job. Before connecting two systems, there are more fundamental questions to answer:

• Which system is responsible for the information?
• How does the platform access it?
• What happens when it changes?
• How should it be presented to the user?

Those decisions matter because integrations can create problems when ownership isn’t clear. If the same information can be changed in several places, for example, it becomes difficult to know which version should be trusted.

Good platform architecture defines those responsibilities. The aim isn’t to connect systems simply because it is technically possible, but to make the movement of information predictable and useful.

A digital platform should make complexity feel simple

An organisation’s website may need to represent multiple services, audiences, locations, departments and internal systems, each with its own requirements. People should be able to use it without having to understand all of that internal complexity.

Someone looking for a course shouldn’t need to understand how a university structures its departments. A customer shouldn’t need to know which internal system contains their account information. Someone making an enquiry shouldn’t need to work out which team inside an organisation is responsible for handling it.

Creating a simpler route through those services takes more than good visual design. Information architecture establishes how content is organised, UX design shapes journeys and interactions, content explains people’s options, and development makes the underlying connections work reliably.

A platform has to work for the people managing it too

Visitors aren’t the only users of a digital platform.

Editors, administrators, marketing teams and other staff may spend considerably more time using it than most visitors ever will. If their experience is difficult, that eventually affects the quality of the public-facing platform as well.

A good CMS should make common tasks easier. Depending on the organisation, that could mean publishing content, managing large datasets, reviewing submissions, updating related information or controlling what different teams are allowed to edit.

This is one reason we put considerable thought into the WordPress editing experience when building platforms at Feel Created.

Gutenberg can provide editors with useful flexibility, but that doesn’t mean every decision needs to be left open. Purpose-built blocks, structured content types, reusable information and sensible defaults can give people freedom where it is useful while protecting the parts of the design and content structure that need to remain consistent.

The result should be a CMS that reflects how the organisation works rather than forcing the organisation to adapt its processes around the CMS.

Keeping a digital platform reliable and secure

When a platform handles applications, payments or account information, people depend on it to work reliably and protect their information. Access should be appropriate to each person’s role, and the platform should collect and share only the information needed to provide the service.

Connected systems also introduce dependencies. If an admissions system is temporarily unavailable, for example, the application journey needs a considered response: that might mean securely retaining a submission for later delivery or explaining clearly that it cannot yet be completed. People need to know what has happened and what to do next.

Monitoring, backups, tested recovery arrangements and ongoing maintenance help keep those services dependable. There also needs to be clear responsibility for checking integrations, responding to failures, reviewing permissions and keeping content and software up to date.

Those responsibilities should be agreed before launch, so the organisation and its development partners understand who looks after each part of the service.

Digital platforms aren’t finished at launch

Launching a digital platform is an important milestone, but it is rarely the point where its development should stop.

As content grows and user behaviour changes, organisations may introduce new services or replace existing systems. A platform designed around their needs at launch may have to support quite different requirements several years later.

That makes maintainability and adaptability important from the beginning. A platform built from reusable components, well-structured content and clearly defined integrations is usually easier to change than one made up of tightly connected features that were only designed for the original requirements.

Analytics, user feedback, performance monitoring and day-to-day experience can show where improvements are needed after launch. Some changes may be small, while others may involve new functionality, integrations or entire areas of the platform.

Building with future change in mind doesn’t mean trying to predict every requirement. It means avoiding decisions that make reasonable future changes unnecessarily difficult.

What makes a good digital platform?

There isn’t a single technology, CMS or list of features that makes a good digital platform. The right solution depends on the organisation and the people using it.

There are, however, some characteristics that good platforms tend to share.

Useful

The platform helps people accomplish something worthwhile. Features exist because they support a genuine need rather than simply because they are technically possible.

Connected

Content, functionality and external systems work together. Users aren’t forced to understand where information comes from or jump unnecessarily between disconnected experiences.

Manageable

The people responsible for the platform can update and maintain it without constantly relying on developers for routine changes.

Accessible

People with different access needs, including disabled people using assistive technology, can find information and complete the tasks the platform supports.

Maintainable

The underlying code, content structures and integrations can be understood and changed without every update becoming a major development project.

Adaptable

The platform can respond as the organisation changes, whether that means adding new content, functionality, services or integrations.

Reliable

Important journeys work consistently, with monitoring and recovery arrangements that help teams identify and resolve problems when something goes wrong.

Secure

Access and data handling are designed around the service’s needs, with appropriate protection for people’s information and ongoing responsibility for security.

Building a digital platform around what an organisation actually needs

It can be tempting to start a digital platform project by discussing technology. Which CMS should we use? What integrations do we need? Should we build a particular feature?

At Feel Created, we start by understanding the people who will use the platform and what they need to accomplish. We then look at the information they need, how the organisation manages it and which processes or systems already exist. Technology can be chosen and designed around those requirements.

Depending on the project, that can involve UX and user journey planning, information architecture, WordPress development, custom Gutenberg editing experiences, bespoke functionality, integrations with other systems, accessibility, performance optimisation and ongoing development.

Not every organisation needs all of those things, and adding more technology doesn’t automatically create a better platform. Sometimes the most useful improvement is simplifying a process or structuring existing information more effectively.

A successful digital platform helps an organisation deliver its services, gives staff practical tools to manage them and supports the people who rely on them. Getting those relationships right creates something that is useful today and can continue to develop as the organisation changes.

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