Taming the SaaS beast with Design Thinking
SaaS here. SaaS there. SaaS everywhere!
SaaS companies rule the roost with products and services in today’s internet-intensive tech-fueled fast-paced world. Companies such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Freshdesk and even Google offer a host of services/solutions to improve the quality of lives of people and businesses.
But, first, what is SaaS?
Software as a service (or SaaS) is a way of delivering applications online—as a service. Instead of installing and maintaining software, you simply access it via the Internet, freeing yourself from complex software and hardware management.
Local example: Zoho is a world leader in SaaS. Based out of Chennai, Zoho offers a host of services such as Zoho People for Human Resource Management, Zoho Social, a customer resource management tool, Zoho Payroll, a payroll management tool among many others. All of these tools are hosted on Zoho’s own servers, yet, we can access them from anywhere remotely, on a convenient monthly basis through subscription.
‘Cool. Thanks for the clarification. But what does design have to do with this?’, we can hear you ask this question from a mile away.
To summarise what is to follow in one line, ‘Great design is the only thing that differentiates one SaaS product/service from another. PERIOD!’
Most local restaurants today offer home delivery services. Yet, we choose a Zomato or a Swiggy. Why? Is it due to the offers, the convenience or the reliability? A bit of everything. In short, we choose Swiggy/Zomato as they have better design. Easier to order, easier to track, easier to pay, the design makes your life so much easier.
Even among these two contemporaries, we choose one over the other in certain scenarios owing to how we experience their interfaces or in other words, how these apps are designed.
For instance, swiggy has better complaint redressal in comparison to Zomato. Yet, Zomato has better offers than Swiggy. It boils down to the trade off you as a customer is willing to make. Nonetheless, great design and consumer understanding is at the core of their success.
How do I incorporate great design to my product/service?
The answer is simple.
Have you considered wondering about your Monday morning?
You wake up, turn off the alarm, get out of bed although begrudgingly and start your day. You inadvertently check your emails, slack and whatsapp. Even as you are driving, when you are stuck in traffic, you keep checking your email and slack multiple times even though you might have seen it only moments before.
Recognise a pattern here? Recognise how we have been habituated to using these products? That is the answer. That is the power of great design. It isn’t necessarily flashy, abstract or gaudy. Like air, you won’t necessarily notice it, but you’ll definitely notice the lack of it.
Essentially, the question you ought to ask yourself is, ‘How can I make my product/app a verb?’. One of the founding members of Dunzo, Kabeer Biswas put it beautifully when he said, ‘We wanted Dunzo to become a verb’ and so it has!
Factors to consider while creating a habit-forming experience:
- User Experience or UX: We have seen many throw around this word casually, ‘I think the UX needs to be fixed’ or ‘Seamless UX is the name of the game’ and all that jazz. To put it simply, UX is how your user experiences your product. Are they able to easily access all the features you want them to? Are they able to navigate between screens easily? Is there an easier way in which they can reach out to you? So on, so forth. Right from the layout of the product to how easily they understand what problem of theirs you will be able to solve, everything hinges on a good user experience.
- Make your users work a bit: The most important part of habit formation is ‘investment’. Allowing opportunities for customisation and personalisation makes the user invested in your product increasing the likelihood of them sticking around. For instance, if your product/app has many of their songs, contacts or messages, they will surely stick around for all these have intrinsic value to them.
- Content: Ah! The most undervalued commodity of all. It is sad really that people think content and design are separate functions. Great content accents your design. Period! I go back to my current favourite consumer app, Dunzo as I speak about content. Their filmy, easy to relate, highly memorable content makes my app experience ‘entertaining’ and ‘chuckle-worthy’ and I keep going back to them time and again. Similarly, cred, the credit card app has great content that makes you sit up and take note. Over time, your users tend to share these notifications with people and automatically, your product has them habituated.
- Tease them with trials: If you think users will buy your product/subscription right off the bat, you are either a noob or highly ambitious or worse, both! It is essential to give them a taste of what to experience and bait them into biting the hook as you reel them in. *Fishing metaphor successfully incorporated*
As SaaS continues to grow exponentially, great design becomes all the more imperative. Be ahead of the curve when it comes to creating a kickass user experience.
If you have an idea in mind, let’s see how we can make it a verb, or a habit! Let’s talk.
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