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8 Best Practices To Improve SaaS UX/UI Design

Written by polyuno
Last modified Dec. 25 2021

UI/UX design is one of the aspects that many companies think is not that important. However, it could be a game-changer factor for any application. Think of a situation where you had an unpleasant experience due to poor usability. Will you use the application again? Most people will then search for an alternative option keeping aside what cool features it provides. That is why functionality must be important but user experience and user interface also need to be carefully designed. This is applicable for any application even for SaaS products. If a SaaS company cannot provide a user-friendly design and experience, it will be very hard for them to get more customers.

8 Best Practices To Improve SaaS UX/UI Design
Image from Unsplash by UX Indonesia

TL;DR

  • SaaS products are now very popular due to their less memory usage in personal devices and less costs. It is necessary to focus on SaaS UI/UX design as it can affect customers’ experience a lot. Users can even cancel their subscriptions due to bad user experience and design.
  • Registration is the first thing a new user would do. That’s why don’t complicate it by asking for a lot of information.
  • The navigation from one page to another should be made in a way so that they can be done smoothly and including a search option is necessary to find the desired information from a lot of information.
  • Onboarding experience plays a great role in the overall user experience. That’s why it is important to focus on what information to share to attract customers rather than providing them with a lot of information.
  • AI-Integrated chatbots can reduce human labor work and can provide customers with quick replies.
  • Use a simple design with illustrations and add a video where necessary. Videos can explain a lot with less time

8 Practices To Improve SaaS UX/UI Designs

SaaS has become a revolutionary invention in the software industry. In the past, people had to install every software on their own device and had to buy every software they need. Moreover, they had to face installation problems and many more. But due to the invention of SaaS products, companies and individuals now don’t have to face these problems. They just have to buy subscriptions from a SaaS company that is lower in cost, more accessible, and above all, it reduces the device space requirements.

SaaS product is made with the target to provide services to audiences for a long period. While some products manage to reach this goal such as Google Cloud, most of them fail to achieve their goal. Many factors affect a SaaS product to be a success but one of the most important factors is their UI/UX design.

A simple but attractive design can increase the number of users. Customers will never want to use something that is complicated and need a lot of time to understand and find the features. If a SaaS product takes a lot of effort for understanding where to click to find a specific feature or which page to go for a specific action, people will try to avoid it and go for a simpler version with similar features. Maybe your product has more advanced features but still, it will not get attention unless it provides user-friendly UI/UX design.

Let’s see some basic design practices that every SaaS product should adopt.

1. Easy Registration

Sign-up is the first process that a user will use before using your product. That’s why it is necessary to keep it easy and one step. If a customer has to go to multiple pages for registration, it will affect the experience and maybe most of them will not complete the sign-up and go for an alternative solution.

Provide a simple sign-up step by asking for minimal information. For instance, only an email id will be enough to prove the authentication and a password to login in the future. There is no need to make it complicated by asking for a lot of personal information and documents. If you need them, you can ask for them later once they start using your product.

2. Hassle-Free Navigation

Your UI/UX design should be in a way that will be easy to navigate. As stated earlier, a SaaS product with a complicated UI/UX design will not be in demand as users will have to invest a lot of time to understand how to navigate.

The home page of the SaaS software should contain the links to navigate to the main features and the menu should be visible on every page. The menu will be used to navigate to other pages from any page without even going back to the previous page every time. The user should know where to go just by seeing the menu even though they are using it for the first time.

3. Efficient Search

This is an important feature that many SaaS product doesn’t include because many companies think it is not necessary to include search filters. But searching filters are necessary because there can be a lot of content and it will be tough for a user to scroll all content and find their desired one. That’s why every SaaS product should have a search option that will help them find anything without hassle.

The search option should be in a place where users can see them easily and this feature needs to be on every page to increase usability.

a person working for saas ui ux design using laptop
Image from Pexels by Ketut Subiyanto

4. Browser and Device Friendly Product

Your web designer should ensure that your website works in every major web browser. It does not matter how well your website looks in Google Chrome if your user uses it from a different browser that does not work well for your product.

This is also applicable for devices too. Your product should be accessible from every major device such as desktops, mobiles, and tablets.

5. Improve Onboarding Service

The onboarding phase is very important as a user will experience it right after their registration. So after signup, if they don’t have a pleasant experience they will leave your service and look for another one. That’s why immediately after registration take the advantage of the opportunity to explain what your SaaS product does and how it can help them. Also, let them know what your SaaS product does not include.

The onboarding phase is the right time when you can explain the details of your product and can set the customer’s expectations. In this stage, your user may want to know a lot of information but don’t burden them with all your information. It will lead them to confusion. Provide them only with what they will need because if they are burdened by a lot of information, they will cancel their subscription.

6. Focus on Dashboard

A SaaS dashboard is a management tool that organizes key metrics such as MRR, CLTV, and many more to provide an overview of the SaaS business.

As it is an important feature, it is necessary to make it as usable as possible. Before you design the board, you need to think of what Key Performance Indicators ( KPIs) you want. Here are some KPIs that you can consider while making a dashboard. They are:

  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • The average revenue per unit (ARPU)
  • Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
  • Customer Churn Rate
  • Customer acquisition cost
  • Net Promoter Score
  • Revenue Churn
  • Customer Retention and many more

After you consider which of these you want to include in your dashboard, invest time to design it to make it attractive and usable for customers.

A dashboard should be able to answer the current status and activities of the business, the problems that should be concerned of and what to do for future improvements.

7. Chatbox Integrations

The use of AI-Integrated chatbox is increasing in every platform on the web. In the past, this job was done solely by human-being but with the advancement of technology, AI-integrated chatbox has replaced humans in this sector. Users now don’t need to wait for a long time to solve their issues. They can get answers whenever they want by simply asking the AI bot.

To get the benefit of quick replies and a good user experience, it is needed to integrate AI -integrated bots. It will reduce a lot of work and improve customer experiences.

8. Include Illustrations

You might have a lot of things to tell to your customers but it will not be worth it if you just write a lot of texts as users don’t have enough time to go through these texts. In such a situation illustrations can help. Illustrations are a good way to express a lot of texts in a simple and attractive form. People tend to enjoy illustrations than reading texts.

There are some more tips you should follow to improve your SaaS UI/UX design.

Add Value Proposition

It indicates the promise made by a company to provide value to their customers if they choose to buy their product.

You should put your value proposition in a place where anyone can see it and can be convinced that your product is the right solution for them.

Include Video Tutorials

Videos can grab the attention of users more effectively and can cover a lot of important perspectives in less time. People enjoy watching videos than reading long texts. That’s why whenever you have long content to cover, you can add a video in place of that. You can also use video tutorials to show how to use your SaaS product even at the time of onboarding.

Use Light Background

It is not a good practice to add a dark background to the website. Using dark background can make the texts difficult to read. It will create a lot of problems if the users do not understand the text included on your website. That's why use a light background so that the text of your website can be easy to read.

Include Dark Mode

Recently, dark mode is getting more attention as it reduces eye strain. That’s why many users who work in front of devices for a long time prefer to use dark mode even it is not dark. To give them a better experience, it is necessary to include dark mode.

Simple UI/UX Design

Create a simple but attractive design to engage more customers to use your product. You might be thinking that complex design can be more engaging to the users but in reality, if designs are too complicated, users will not understand how to use your SaaS application.

Final Words

SaaS business is very competitive and that’s why every company should adopt the best possible ways to differentiate themselves from others. UI/UX design can be a great factor in this case.

Improving UI/UX design will not only increase the usability of the SaaS product but also will attract more customers to buy your service.

Looking for a reliable company for user-friendly UI/UX design? PolyUno is here to help. Book a call today!

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