Economies of Scale: That is exactly what makes SaaS UX Design a success. But, while making universal software, many often forget to emphasise on its user interaction and resulting experience that comes out of using it.
When it comes to using a SaaS application, it is serious work. The users are most probably working in stressful environments, working for 8 hours straight and waiting to finish their work and be done for the day.
Thus, the SaaS provider’s job does not end at just making things cheaper, more accessible and served on a platter. It is about making it fun for the stressed employee to work on your platform.
Think dashboards with themes?
I would love to work around a dashboard with the theme of Avengers, Star Wars or my favourite football team!
Employers look for efficiency which can be increased by making work more fun, engaging and aligned with personal interests.
If you are looking forward to making your SaaS UX Design the most loved by its users, look no further! Here are some ways that you can be the employee’s favourite!
SAAS UX Design Flowchart
Try to understand your users by conducting surveys and taking feedbacks.
Understand the users!
Rule #101 of any service: Be user-oriented!
Thus, try to understand your users by conducting surveys and taking feedbacks. This will not only help you to get familiar with their current troubles but also understand their expectations and workflows. This further empowers us to deliver better results.
Similarly, if an organisation is switching from one SaaS provider to you or aborting your services, try having your entry/exit interview. Take notes of their requirements/feedback and check how you can improvise.
This will help you to stay updated and cater to your users in the most optimal manner.
Don’t dictate.
While you must be providing a platform to make tasks easier, it is quite possible that a SaaS tool made for the masses does not efficiently cater to all organisations universally. Different organisations have different needs and flexibility in SaaS is key.
Instead, let there be options that an organisation can choose from. Let them choose where they want to place their dashboards and what they want the wireframe to be.
Some organisations might generate mandatory quotations before invoices and some might make simple over the counter sales that do not need quotations at all.
Schedules & deadlines at SAAS
Deadlines and Schedules needs to be accessible.
Calendars and scheduling:
Organisations work on deadlines and schedules. These deadlines and schedules need to be accessible. Thus, it is important that any SaaS provider adds a tiny calendar bubble somewhere in the corner that can be easily accessed.
Adding a calendar would not only enable users to view schedules and deadlines but also see sales and conversions in a CRM application.
While it is great news that many SaaS UX Designs do incorporate an inbuilt calendar cum organiser, some elements ‘that make it difficult to use them, is their interface. Most of these have monthly calendars where the user has to physically choose the month he wants to access using a drop-down menu.
Now imagine changing the month from a drop-down menu on every 1st of the month to access information from the previous month, that would be such a task! Instead, if this is a scrollable calendar, where one can simply scroll to access the previous or the next month, the interface would be much simpler and easier to use!
SAAS offers Personalised themes
These themes can not only be personalised and aligned with an employee’s personal interests but also help break the monotony.
Add personalised themes in your SAAS UX Designs:
Like we have mentioned before, to increase efficiency at work, we need to make it fun! While the wireframe and workflows are standard throughout the organisation, we sure can have different themes!
These themes can not only be personalised and aligned with an employee’s personal interests but also help break the monotony.
Offer themes that a user can choose from! Such as themes about the topics that interest the user such as hobbies or superheroes. If this seems too much, one can also offer festive themes during the festivals. In the end, it is all about creating an encouraging and efficient work environment.
Help Bubbles:
Every SaaS provider wants his/ her product to be all-inclusive. While this is a great option for any organisation, too much information can certainly lead to confusion.
This is exactly where help bubbles come handy. That tiny question mark in a bubble which expands when clicked and provides a brief is actually a lot more useful than we think.
However, even while adding help bubbles many SaaS providers skip adding it to elements that they think would be easily understood. These are the times we might misunderstand the user. Thus, no matter how easy it is to you, remember easy is a subjective term and ADD it to EVERYTHING!
Customised Dashboards:
Every role has different responsibilities.
Thus, an idea of one dashboard serves all would be a major hoax.
Instead, let a user choose his/her role and relevant responsibilities during user on-boarding and programme the SaaS in such a manner that it delivers a dashboard most optimal for that set of roles and responsibilities. This is a good example for SAAS UX Design.
One can even go one step further and provide the option to customise dashboards similar to how a user would favourite or star the actions that are used most often. This enhances the user interaction on the application as he/she saves a lot of time and can in turn increase employee efficiency.
Responsive screen sizes:
Most efficient employees are known to multi-task. While Ctrl+Alt+Tab is a thing of the past, split screens are the latest favourite.
It would be quite a task to scroll to find your task button while working on two platforms/ documents at the same time. Thus, ensure that if a user chooses to multitask on a split-screen mode, the screen adapts and minimises to fit the appropriate ratios and he/ she can conveniently do so.
SAAS Application Mobile UX
When it comes to using a SaaS application, it is serious work.
Chatbots:
While we have chatbots practically everywhere, why not have one here as well?
Make it Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled or even add a Virtual Assistant to help and solve problems if it is viable or the problems are too complex. This ensures that most problems are catered to almost instantaneously thus dealing with any lag.
Other than this, there is so much more than designing can do to the entire SaaS experience. From better user on-boarding to actionable bubbles and provision of non-photo avatars to integration with task-management tools.
What do you think will enhance the UX Design for a SaaS application? What are the problems that you face?
Let us know in the comments section below!
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