Work

Getting real about government platform challenges

Government digital platforms are tough. They’re expected to serve everyone, solve everything and somehow make it all feel simple. It’s an impossible task, really.

MYStartup was working to meet ambitious adoption goals. The platform aimed to serve multiple stakeholders simultaneously: founders seeking funding, investors searching for opportunities and technology talents looking for job placement. While the platform showed promise, engagement metrics suggested opportunities for improvement. As Malaysia’s Digital Economy Blueprint established forward-looking targets for digital contribution to GDP, enhancing the platform’s performance became increasingly important to support these national economic objectives.

When MyDIGITAL and Cradle approached Stampede, their concern was clear: the existing platform wasn’t effectively supporting Malaysia’s startup growth objectives. Users were signing up but not returning. Resources were being added but not discovered. Connections were possible but not happening.

They needed more than just a standard usability audit. They needed a comprehensive diagnosis connecting user-level friction to system-level issues and policy-level objectives. Most importantly, they needed actionable insights that would work within their government context rather than theoretical recommendations that ignored implementation realities.

Our Approach

Finding gaps between policy and practice

We began by connecting platform metrics directly to Malaysia’s Digital Economy Blueprint targets. This crucial alignment session with stakeholders from MyDIGITAL and Cradle created a shared framework for evaluating performance gaps not just in terms of usability but in terms of economic impact.

Breaking the government consultant stereotype

Government agencies like MyDIGITAL and Cradle are accustomed to consultants who bring formal presentations, carefully worded documents, and dance around difficult conversations. We took a different path:

• Sharing preliminary findings when they could help, not waiting for polished presentations
• Creating space for honest conversations about metrics and implementation challenges
• Bringing policy specialists, developers, and designers into the same diagnostic sessions
• Being transparent about what we didn’t know instead of pretending to have all the answers

The turning point came during our third meeting. Instead of abstract recommendations, we simply showed videos of real users struggling with specific tasks.

Bringing a developer to a knife fight

We did something unusual—our technical team participated in usability testing alongside UX researchers. This technical perspective transformed our gap analysis from a list of interface problems to a comprehensive diagnosis of both frontend and backend issues.

Having developers observe testing directly meant they could immediately assess:

• Technical bottlenecks creating user friction
• Backend limitations constraining certain journeys
• Quick-win opportunities that wouldn’t require major development
• Structural issues that would need longer-term solutions

This approach elevated our recommendations from abstract concepts to practical roadmaps with clear technical context.

Connecting everyday friction to national objectives

Far from gathering dust, the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint sets ambitious vision for economic transformation. Our job was connecting specific user frustrations to these broader objectives.

We translated moments of user confusion, abandonment, and workarounds into their economic impact—showing how seemingly small usability issues were directly affecting Malaysia’s ability to achieve specific digital economy targets.

The Result

Our diagnostic framework

It’s worth being specific about what we actually produced for the MyDIGITAL and Cradle teams. Our gap analysis consisted of seven interconnected components:

1. Service design strategy alignment created collaboratively with key stakeholders from MyDIGITAL and Cradle. This crucial session aligned platform success metrics with Malaysia’s national digital economy targets for 2025 and 2030. By connecting day-to-day platform performance directly to long-term economic objectives, we created a shared vision that guided all subsequent research and recommendations.
   
   
2. Comparative benchmarking that placed MYStartup alongside similar platforms globally, revealing specific gaps, strengths and opportunities with concrete examples.
   
   
3. Performance and engagement analysis that revealed not just how users moved through the platform, but also where technical bottlenecks were hiding. This technical performance lens—something we enjoy thanks to our hybrid design-dev capability—showed how seemingly small engineering improvements could dramatically improve the user experience without redesigning anything.
   
   
4. Heuristic evaluation that caught usability issues before they affected more users, focusing on the most critical user journeys. It was done relatively early as we know these tend to be the easiest and quickest to fix.
   
   
5. Usability testing with real users trying to complete real tasks. We recorded and timestamped the exact moments of confusion and frustration. Nothing convinces like watching someone struggle with something you built.
   
   
6. Strategic recommendations that connected directly to Malaysia’s Digital Economy Blueprint objectives. This wasn’t cosmetic advice—it showed how specific improvements would advance national digital economy goals.
   
   
7. Phased implementation roadmap that respected development realities. We prioritised changes by impact and effort, allowing the team to deliver quick wins while planning for bigger improvements.
   
   

Perhaps most valuable was the clarity it created across departments. By the project’s conclusion, everyone from policy leadership to development teams shared the same understanding of how real user experiences were affecting national objectives.

The Impact

Making the invisible visible

Our gap analysis transformed vague concerns about “low adoption” into concrete, observable patterns with clear causes. When stakeholders could literally see users struggling with specific tasks, priorities became obvious and decisions became evidence-driven rather than opinion-based.

Immediate implementation opportunities

The agencies began addressing issues before our final report was complete because we shared preliminary insights throughout the process. When presented with clear evidence and practical solutions, they acted immediately—proving government digital services can move quickly when equipped with the right diagnosis.

Creating a shared diagnostic language

Beyond specific recommendations, we created a framework connecting user-level metrics to policy-level objectives. This shared diagnostic language empowered teams to continue identifying and addressing barriers long after our engagement concluded.

Future-proofing

Beyond today’s fixes: Building diagnostic capability

Our approach wasn’t focused solely on fixing immediate issues—it was about building the team’s capacity to identify and address barriers continuously as the digital economy evolves.

Through collaborative diagnostic sessions, technical workshops, and shared frameworks, we equipped the MyDIGITAL and Cradle teams with:

• Tools to continuously monitor the connection between user experience and economic impact
• Methodologies for prioritizing improvements based on national objectives
• Diagnostic approaches that bridge policy intentions with user realities
• Evidence-gathering techniques that drive consensus across departments

The stereotype of slow, bureaucratic government simply didn’t fit. When shown concrete evidence of barriers to adoption, the teams responded with agility and purpose. They weren’t defensive about findings or resistant to change—quite the opposite. They were eager for insights that would help them better serve Malaysia’s digital economy goals.

Preparing for 2025 and beyond

MYStartup isn’t just a platform—it’s a crucial vehicle for Malaysia’s economic transformation. Our gap analysis provided both immediate fixes and strategic direction to ensure the platform can scale effectively as Malaysia approaches its 2025 and 2030 economic targets.

By connecting everyday user friction directly to national objectives, we helped transform a struggling government platform into an effective enabler of Malaysia’s digital future—not through cosmetic redesign, but through deep diagnosis of what was actually getting in the way of the country’s ambitious goals.

Transforming diagnosis into direction

Every day when we get to help organisations solve complex problems is a good day at Stampede. Our approach isn’t about fancy frameworks or proprietary methods—it’s about connecting real people to meaningful outcomes:

• We bring technical expertise directly into user sessions to see beyond surface symptoms
• We show stakeholders the unfiltered reality of how their platforms perform in real hands
• We translate policy objectives into concrete user journeys with measurable impact
• We treat partners as collaborators in the diagnostic process, not just recipients of reports

In the end, our work with MyStartup wasn’t just about identifying gaps—it was about revealing the path between current challenges and Malaysia’s digital economy aspirations. By connecting everyday user experiences to national objectives, we helped transform diagnosis into direction.

Sometimes the most important step in building the future is understanding exactly where you stand today. If that approach sounds useful for your digital challenges—whether in government, enterprise, or growing organisations—let’s talk. We’re more interested in understanding your specific barriers than prescribing predefined solutions.

After all, that’s exactly how we helped MYStartup grow from a platform with potential into a true enabler of Malaysia’s digital economy.