--- title: How We Decide When New Technology Is Worth Using (And When It's Not) description: >- The best innovators don't chase every trend - they choose depth over noise. Something Else Studio on why flexibility and focused execution beat frequency. date: '2025-11-22' category: Blog tags: - Blog canonical_url: https://www.se.studio/blog/how-we-decide-when-new-technology-is-worth-using/ source: Something Else license: © 2026 Something Else. All rights reserved. slug: how-we-decide-when-new-technology-is-worth-using id: 57JYaQswKBJQcgrISQHELe contentType: article --- # How We Decide When New Technology Is Worth Using (And When It's Not) ![How we decide on new Tech Blog image](https://images.ctfassets.net/g0pw3n92bre6/7xwsldnSMAWen4b09pOZvs/25e1aea7f740571d5fceafef01d650a0/Frame_2018781190.jpg) ### One Question Before Every Adoption *Does it actually solve a problem worth solving?* That question sounds simple. It's surprisingly difficult to answer honestly, especially when a client is excited about a new capability or a technology is generating significant industry attention. AI audio is a useful test case. The technology has advanced considerably - conversational interfaces, voice-driven navigation, ambient audio experiences are all technically possible on a website. But for most brand and marketing sites, adding AI audio creates complexity without adding value. Users don't expect it, don't want to manage it and are more likely to be interrupted by it than helped. The technology exists; the use case, for most contexts, doesn't. ### AI Where It Earns Its Keep For [Love Island](/work/love-island/custom-shopify-experience/)'s custom Shopify experience, we used AI to support a specific strategic goal: making a large, rapidly-updating product catalogue feel personally relevant to individual shoppers. The recommendation logic needed to work at the pace of the show - new products launching weekly, audience interest shifting in real time. AI-powered personalisation solved that problem cleanly. The distinction that matters: AI as infrastructure versus AI as decoration. When it's doing real work in the background - improving relevance, reducing latency, automating repetitive decisions - it tends to be worth the investment. When it's visible for its own sake, it usually isn't. ### Usability Over Innovation Theatre New tools can bring new complexity, and that complexity is always paid for by the end user. Our UX work for [British Airways](/work/british-airways/getting-ready-to-fly/)' airport kiosks was a reminder of how high the cost of unnecessary complexity can be. The kiosk users are passengers under time pressure, often unfamiliar with the interface, carrying luggage, and sometimes travelling with children or in groups. Every additional step in a flow, every piece of jargon, every layout that requires interpretation — all of it adds up to friction that the traveller absorbs. ![BA Getting Ready posters](https://images.ctfassets.net/g0pw3n92bre6/2IZ7tLpMj1QL9heQVl1UQC/73cf2963e3a7d3a01c6918ece38203bf/BA_GettingReady-Screens.jpg) We stripped back every non-essential element and tested every flow against real passenger behaviour. The innovation in that project wasn't a new technology - it was the discipline to remove things. Sometimes the best digital design decision is subtraction. ### Digital Tools in High-Stakes Contexts Perhaps the area where technology adoption decisions carry the most weight is healthcare. For [Brightline](/work/brightline/virtual-mental-health-care-for-kids-and-families/), a virtual mental health platform serving children and families, every interface decision had clinical implications. The product needed to be genuinely easy for young users and their parents - not 'intuitive' in the tech-industry sense, but actually navigable by people who might be anxious, distressed, or unfamiliar with digital health tools. "Privacy and compliance weren't constraints on the design - they were part of the brief. We built around them rather than despite them. The result is a platform where the technology disappears entirely, which is exactly what you want in a mental health context." ### Lasting Value Over Constant Change The most valuable digital systems we've built share a characteristic: they get better over time without requiring constant reinvention. They were designed with enough architectural clarity that new capabilities can be added cleanly, without breaking what already works. That's the standard we hold new technology to. Not: is this interesting? But: does this make the system more durable, more useful, more aligned with what the people using it actually need? When the answer is yes, we adopt it. When it's not, we wait. ***About the piece: ****Article by Ty Lou and Nick Randell, co-founders at SE Studio, a branding, design and technology agency based in London and San Francisco. Case studies referenced: *[*Love Island *](entry-link)*- Custom Shopify Experience, *[*British Airways*](entry-link)* - Getting Ready to Fly and *[*Brightline*](entry-link)* - Virtual Mental Health Care.* - [The Art of Engagement: Building Meaningful Content](/blog/the-art-of-engagement-building-meaningful-content/) - [Pursuing The Creative In Branding](/blog/pursuing-the-creative-in-branding/) - [How We Rebuilt HopSkipDrive's 570-Page Website Without Breaking a Thing](/blog/the-story-behind-hopskipdrives-website-transformation/) - [How We Built a Fintech Brand Identity for a Hedge Fund's Spinout](/blog/how-we-built-a-fintech-brand-identity-for-a-hedge-fund's-spinout/) - [Why Healthcare Brands Have to Work Harder Than Any Other](/blog/why-healthcare-brands-have-to-work-harder-than-any-other/)