Whenever you use a new product, be it a phone, tablet, game console, the first thing you’ll notice is the user interface, or UI. All products with visual elements have these UI systems to help users navigate their features, and this extends to products beyond just physical devices, but software as a service platforms as well.
How SaaS Platforms Utilize a UI
For some services, like SaaS platforms, a UI is critical to the experience because it is what the user will interact with the most. Since SaaS platforms are used to perform critical tasks like data backup and collaboration, the ease of use of these applications needs to be as high as possible so that tasks are completed efficiently. Its important you try and benchmark your SaaS solution against other systems.
UI is what consumers most engage with while using a product, everything they do from launching apps to finding new ones. In SaaS platforms, this could extend to different devices launching the same software as well. A well-conceived user experience should be consistent across every device, and be formatted correctly no matter where they are used.
The most simple tasks a service provides should be understood at a glance with a well designed UI. Icons, colors, and backgrounds should complement the design of each other and look consistent all the way across. Companies who create the best UI SaaS designs carefully concentrate on the architecture of UIs and aim to prevent design looks. Since an organization normally uses numerous devices with the same user interface, each device needs to be visually adhered to a consistent look.
Elements of a Good UI
Over the past few years, as cloud technology has taken off in usage, user interfaces have changed and common design patterns are no longer used with new design philosophies like minimalism become standard. Just compare the interface of Windows from Vista to Windows 10 to see just how much the change has occurred.
The current trend is minimalism in design and style, featuring solid colors and consistent icons with similar looks. This uniformity came around because many businesses that provide multiple software packages like Windows and Adobe are launching cross platforms and desired to keep their looks consistent so that consumers will always know exactly which app does what.
With Saas platforms, this is important because the UI must be consistent all across various devices because users might be accessing them from different places all around the world and collaborating with others using different devices.
If you’re someone accessing a software or document from your office, and then going home and continuing to work on the same project, the user interface will remain the same so you can continue working without worrying about getting used to a whole new look.
The engagement between UI and customers of products is critically important to SaaS platforms because they see usage across various devices and places. When taking the compatibility of all these kinds of usage into account, it’s important for a UI to maintain the highest quality performance and look good doing it too. The best designs are the ones that make the consumer experience better overall.
