In July 2026 we shipped a new piece of software for David Duggleby: an auction management cockpit. The idea is easy to say and harder to build — a single screen where the team runs the auction management side of the business, day to day.
What the client needed
Running auctions involves a lot of moving parts, and the day-to-day admin behind them tends to sprawl. Different tasks live in different places, and the people doing the work end up hopping between them.
The brief we set ourselves was blunt: put the day-to-day running of the auction management side of the business on one screen. Not a suite of tools, not a dashboard that links out to ten other pages — a cockpit. Everything the team needs for the daily work, in one place.
What we built
We built exactly that: a single-screen cockpit the team now uses to run auction management day to day. It has been built and shipped, and it is in use — not a prototype or a pilot.
This is bespoke auction management software, written for how this business actually works rather than how a generic product assumes it works. That is the trade-off with off-the-shelf systems: they cover everyone a bit, so they fit no one exactly. When the software is built around the real work, the screen can show what the team actually needs and nothing else.
It is the same approach we take across everything we do: understand the day-to-day job first, then build the smallest thing that does it properly.
Why one screen matters
The value of a cockpit is not any single feature. It is the absence of friction. When the daily work lives in one place:
- There is one screen to open in the morning, not several.
- Nothing falls down the gap between two systems, because there is no gap.
- New staff learn one tool, not a routine of tools.
- The state of the day is visible at a glance, because it is all in front of you.
None of that shows up on a feature list, but it is what people mean when they say software “just works”. Most small and mid-sized businesses do not need more software; they need fewer, better screens.
Software for businesses, not just websites
People know us for web design, but a fair amount of our work looks like this project: internal tools that make the daily running of a business simpler. It sits alongside the client work in our portfolio, and it comes with the same habits — plain speaking, honest pricing and building only what is needed. If you are wondering what fair pricing looks like for the website side, we have written openly about what a small business website should cost.
If your team spends its day juggling systems that do not talk to each other, a cockpit might be the answer for you too. Get in touch and tell us how the day-to-day actually works — that is always where we start.
Want something like this for your business? We're in Scarborough - websites start at £49.
Start a conversation