importance of ux design -main

The Value of User Experience Design for SaaS App

Design
15 min
Jul 04, 2023

A good User Experience (UX) design can boost your sales in geometric progression. According to the statistics, an easy-to-use SaaS application design can generate 400% more conversion. But if the platform is difficult to navigate, half of the visitors will leave it.

For SaaS app owners, UX is a tremendous and topmost source of interaction with an end user. Thus working on its development can significantly improve the product’s overall performance. This article will uncover the importance of good design for SaaS applications.

What is UX design?

UX design is a definition of the design that shapes the customer’s journey in the most seamless way. This term refers to numerous processes, from analyzing the psychology of a target audience to building interaction between a user and a platform. UX design covers all stages of the customer journey: from completing the onboarding to using the product.

Imagine being a viewer of the application. If you get rapid responses to your requests, are being quickly redirected to the other page, or activate any button in seconds — be sure, good UX designers are involved. A properly constructed user experience design ensures the user can effortlessly get to the necessary information.

Why user experience design is important for SaaS apps?

For SaaS products, UX is not only responsible for increasing the conversion rate. It guarantees that users will leave satisfied even if they didn’t make use of your services.

A well-made design can distinguish your brand from the competitors. The association with ease of use will stick to your app giving every viewer a pleasure to wander over. Advanced UX makes the platform more accessible to customers with different needs expanding the boundaries of the target audience.

Benefits of UX design for SaaS platforms

Good user experience is profitable for a business owner and for customers. The easier it is to use your app, the more satisfied customers you get, and as a result the higher revenue. So here are the advantages of designing a user-friendly product.

Benefits of UX design

Increased user satisfaction

When the choice of SaaS service is endless, it is difficult to impress a user. Being existed more than 30,000 SaaS firms, the key to gaining customers is to satisfy them. An intuitive design and well-planned functionality can make a better impression than the most generous offer.

The onboarding stage should also be easy-to-go-through to create a first memorable impression. Many services tend to turn the sign-up process into a questionnaire with countless questions thinking that the more info the user provides, the better. But usually, customers don’t want to spend time filling out the forms. Enhancing the UX of your onboarding can win more clients.

Increased customer loyalty

SaaS solutions with flexible customization and personalization allow users to adjust the product to their needs. Thus, it builds trust and loyalty to your platform.

Also, when choosing among the competitors users will always prefer an application that is straightforward and glitch-free. Thus, your enhanced UX design can evoke more faith in your brand from the client’s end.

Conversion rate growth

Conversion metrics are responsible to identify what and how many actions users took on your platform. Obviously, less activity means bad usability and fewer customers.

By simplifying the steps and workflows on your app, you can expect a better conversion rate. For example, as the user signs up for the first time, provide instructions on how to utilize your program. But don’t force everyone to read them. Make it skippable.

Sales boost

When you improve the user experience, you automatically become on the way to more sales generation. You can learn from your own experience: if the service you use works seamlessly, you will be more eager to buy from them than from a platform that loads every page for 10 seconds or has inactive buttons.

With great UX design, SaaS platforms can decrease the chunk rate and make paying customers stay longer. And it is certainly easier to build a relationship with an existing client base than search for a new one.

Reduced costs for customer support

If a user can easily understand how to utilize your application, there will be no questions to your customer support team. This can reduce the burden on your support team and reduce maintenance costs.

The benefit of good UX is in the fact that it is aimed at avoiding issues, not solving them after they occur.

Better reputation on the market

SaaS companies who make focus on the importance of user experience design, win top positions on the market. It works simply: one satisfied customer tells a friend about your service and the next day you get a new client.

How to design UX for a SaaS application?

When designing UX, you should understand that this is a never-ending process. Technology improves and to keep up with it you will need to constantly improve your platform. If you want to satisfy end users, you first have to go in their shoes and research your product as if you were a client.

Let’s dive into the process of creating a good UX design step-by-step.

design UX for a SaaS app

Researching the needs of customers

Even if from your side it looks like the app is perfect, it has advanced features and provides value, users can spot something different. For example, a personal profile that is difficult to find, functions overload, or annoying notifications. Getting deeper into what your target audience needs can help.

Use a comprehensive approach at this stage with the help of other tools. See some of them below:

  • Respondent.io. This user research instrument is useful for conducting surveys and questionnaires. With Respondent.io, you can gather valuable feedback for further analysis.
  • Optimal Workshop. Optimal Workshop is great for card sorting: a method of showing users different cards of your content (pages, features, interface) which they have to group into logical order and section. Thus, you can understand how to sort your content based on that data.
  • Lookback. Conduct usability tests with the Lookback tool. It can host video or audio meetings to see what actions users will do given the specific functions.
  • Hotjar Heatmaps. After gathering the necessary data, log it into Hotjar Heatmaps to see the user interactions not by numbers but visually. It makes it easier to find out what users are navigating on your app.

Drawing user journey map

When you have gathered quantitative and qualitative data, you can draw the way your customers go on the platform. A user journey map is a visual representation of how a user interacts with a SaaS product: from the moment they hear about you until becoming paying customers.

Here is how it works:

  • Set a goal and identify your customer. Clarify what you want to achieve with the user map. Then choose a specific customer: for example a newbie, or a premium subscriber.
  • Plan the interactions. Determine all the touchpoints your customer will perform on the platform.
  • Gather engagement data. By seeing what actions a user is taking, you can get the conversion rate number.
  • Reach out to customers directly. Simple observing is not enough to get a complete picture of the user interaction with your platform. For instance, you can invite users for interviews by providing a link to the calendar in the message they receive when canceling the subscription.
  • Implement knowledge into improved UX. Use the information from the user journey map to upgrade your SaaS product.

To make a user journey seamless and uncomplicated, work on the intuitiveness of your design. At the beginning of the way, users have various questions as they didn”t interact with your app earlier. Create a knowledge base for them with how-to explanations. Support them throughout the way by providing support channels.

design UX for a SaaS application

User and usability testing

“Stich in time saves nine” — this is what user testing does. It reveals the critical points before the platform reaches greater audiences. With the MVP version, you need to check the user’s experience. Real people who never saw your app can tell you more than any professional developers.

User testing gives valuable data. You can spread the app between colleagues but feedback from 10 people will never be equal to statistics from 100 ones.

Along with user testing, you can apply usability testing. It focuses more on the product itself and its functionality. Here are popular methods for usability testing:

  • Guerilla testing. The easiest way to get feedback from users on your product is to go to the nearest public place and ask them to use your platform. Yes, it sounds awkward but for a small gift, people can give you a real estimation of the app and its functions.
  • 5-second test. This method refers to showing your product to audiences for five seconds. Then they have to respond to what they saw and whether they would choose your brand. As the statistics show, it takes 50 milliseconds for customers to decide whether they trust so. So this test can check the first impression from your app.
  • Card sorting. As mentioned, this method implies preparing cards with the content of the app and offering clients to group them. Thus you will see the user’s logic and display content in the right order.
  • First-click testing. With first-click testing, you can identify whether users find the right path and how it takes to follow it. Based on that data, you can decide whether your design is logical and intuitive.

Constant testing and design improvement

The peculiarity of the SaaS products world is in its continuous changes and enhancement. To be competitive in the market, it is not enough to release the app and never touch it after the testing on the MVP stage. You should conduct testing regularly.

Iterative testing which refers to constantly making small changes regularly can help in adding new features to your app. But before you work hard and implement those features, it is worth testing whether users need them.

An example of product improvement testing would be fake door testing. Let’s suppose you want to add a feature of integration with Google Calendar. But do users need it? To find out that, you can add it as if it existed. And when customers open it, they will see it is inactive. With the help of tracking tools, you will see how many users clicked on that feature.

Other ways to find out how to improve your SaaS product are to conduct surveys, interviews, and other feedback-gathering methods. Users will tell you better what they need rather than guess.

Conclusion: what is the value of UX?

User experience design is the most significant part of any SaaS product. It influences all spheres that show the app’s performance rate: user satisfaction and loyalty, conversion rate, sales, and reputation. And making a design intuitive and seamless can help you get more customers as people use those products that are simple in utilization.

UX design process is a constant of improvement and testing. Before the release of the app, to build a good user experience you have to conduct a thorough research of user needs, draw a user journey map, and use this data for creating the best design.

But the process doesn’t stop on the MVP testing. For the SaaS niche, improving should be constant as you always need to give customers more. So gathering feedback in any form about your product is a must. This valuable data can give you ideas for improvement from the end user side.

by Ivan Klyzhenko
UX Startup Advisor, Uitop

FAQ

What is UX design?

UX design is the term used for identifying the interactions of users with your platform. It is responsible for building an attractive interface, easy-to-understand navigation, and better overall usability and accessibility. User experience refers to the whole lifecycle of user interactions: from going through the onboarding stage to constant use.

Why does UX design matter?

Building a good UX design can significantly improve your overall app performance. It has numerous benefits like increased user satisfaction, better conversion rate, increased user loyalty and trust, better reputation, and sales boost. As long as your application is easy to use, it will always be in demand.

How to build a good UX design?

To build a good UX design means to put yourself in the place of a customer. To identify what is the logic of your app and what actions should be done to get to a certain point you have to conduct research. For that purpose, you can use tools that help gather user feedback. Using that data, you can build a roadmap and predict how to create a seamless customer journey.

What is testing in UX?

Testing appears on all the stages of the product release: during the MVP version and when the product is already on the market. To create an outstanding user experience, testing is the first technique to turn to. Using different testing methods you can identify what your target audience needs and how to improve your app.

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