Software-as-a-Service, also known as SaaS, is becoming mainstream nowadays. Increased automation and agility are fueling the SaaS market’s growth. According to Report Linker, the global SaaS market size is expected to grow from $371 billion in 2020 to $832 billion by 2025.
There is a good reason for SaaS success and demand. Thanks to the flexibility, affordability for any budget, and accessibility from any device, almost any business can benefit from implementing such applications, starting from tiny stationery shops to giant corporations.
In this article, we will discuss the importance of UI/UX for SaaS, compare large and smaller players of the SaaS market and define the key principles of SaaS product design, which will help to understand why SaaS products will not survive if the UI/UX is misleading.
Why Design Is Crucial to Build a Reliable SaaS Product?
Before jumping into the list of good-design principles and the creation of an innovative and delightful design, let us define what a good UI/UX design is.
- Decent looking and doesn’t scare users away;
- Doing the job promised by your marketing campaign;
- Helping users to achieve their goals;
- Satiating the founders’ or stakeholders’ tastes.
Yet, when we are talking about exquisite design, it doesn’t mean that an app’s design should please everybody or be a piece of art. For a business, utility is way more important.
To illustrate that savvy design and approach to it can win the hearts of millions (without having a big name), we will compare Microsoft Teams and Slack, go through their UI/UX approach, features, security, pricing, and market share.
Microsoft Teams and Slack: UI/UX approach
Before going into details, it is worth mentioning that Slack was launched in 2014, two years earlier than Microsoft Teams. Imitation of what works best is not a new approach for many businesses, and SaaS is no exception: the touch and feel of the UI/UX of the Microsoft Team are not very different from those of Slack. You can see a certain resemblance if you look at both of them.
Specifically, some of the similarities include:
- Slack has a ‘Channels’ section which corresponds to the ‘Teams’ functionality in Microsoft Teams.
- To target a specific person in a Channel/Team, @ is used before their username in both products. The person you are trying to reach will get a notification.
- Both allow creating multiple Channels/Teams.
Yet, there are some differences too:
- Onboarding: Microsoft Teams provides text and video instructions, while Slack engages new users via an interactive step-by-step guide.
- Shortcuts: both products have them. Yet Microsoft Teams’ shortcuts are ‘conservative’ and more about opening a specific tab or page, while Slack has shortcuts even for editing a recent message — you can press just one key or see all starred messages with CTRL(⌘) + SHIFT + S. In short, Slack offers shortcuts that help to quickly complete tasks.
- Search: as with shortcuts, Microsoft Teams’ search possibilities are general, while in Slack you can search for messages with the help of emojis via a ‘has’ search parameter.
Microsoft Teams and Slack: Features
Both products offer users somewhat similar features. The major difference between them lies only in their accessibility because of the terms of the paid plans.
Here is a list of features both products share in common:
- Channels/Teams;
- Unlimited messages;
- Private messages;
- Message search;
- File sharing;
- Screen sharing;
- One-on-one audio and video calls;
- Web, desktop, and mobile versions of the app, etc.
Here is a list of features both products have but on different terms:
- A number of users: up to 500k with Microsoft Teams’ free plan and unlimited with Slack;
- Guest access: up to 5 per user even with Microsoft Teams’ paid plan and unlimited with Slack’s paid plan;
- Video conferences: up to 250 users with Microsoft Teams’ paid plan and only up to 15 users with Slack’s paid plan;
- Bots: Microsoft Teams provides third-party bots and WhoBot that is available only for paid users; Slack offers SlackBot for everyone;
- Integrations: up to 500 for Microsoft Teams and up to 2k with Slack.
It is fair to say that both are evenly matched in terms of features: Microsoft Teams has advantages in some areas while Slack offers benefits in others. Many features of the Teams are useful for large enterprises (e.g., it supports live events with up to 10k people by using a combo of Teams, Stream, and Yammer).
Microsoft Teams and Slack: Security
In terms of security and compliance, both Microsoft Teams and Slack did a good job: crucial features like two-factor authentication are available for all plans in both products.
Microsoft Teams offers sound information management and access control. Administrative functions are available even in a basic version of Microsoft Teams, while Slack offers those only for plus and enterprise plans.
On the other hand, Slack is compliant with most basic ISO certifications and is HIPAA-compliant. This makes it an easier choice if compliance is a must.
Microsoft Teams and Slack: Pricing
So, which paid plan provides the best value? Let’s look at every plan both have to offer. Slack also has the Enterprise Plan, but they require contacting their sales team about pricing, so we didn’t include it on the screenshot.
To get a clear first impression, let’s see what both products offer to their free users:
- An unlimited amount of messages;
- As for the number of users, for Slack, it is possible to have an unlimited number of users, while Microsoft Teams offers up to 500k users (which is practically unlimited for lots of businesses);
- Free users can search through an entire message history in Microsoft Teams, while Slack limits the search to only last 10k messages;
- Screen sharing is available for free users of Teams, but Slack allows it only after subscription to any of the paid plans;
- Free users of Microsoft Teams can have audio and video calls with up to 300 participants for up to 60 minutes, while free Slack users can have only one-on-one audio and video calls.
Thus, we can say that Microsoft Teams offers more ‘free’ features than Slack, especially if a business relies on screen sharing and online conferences.
The real advantage of Teams comes if a company has already subscribed to the Microsoft 365 Suite. The business and enterprise plans include access to the premium plan of Teams. That also works the other way around — ‘Microsoft 365 Business Standard’ and enterprise plans open access to the full desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Microsoft Teams and Slack: Market Share
According to Statista, it took Teams roughly three years since its beta release in November 2016 to reach 20 million users, blowing past the former market leader Slack in the process.
So, does it mean that Microsoft kills Slack? Not exactly. Microsoft aims at larger companies, governmental and educational institutions, and its Office 365 user base. While Slack is an apparent leader among startups, developers, and tech-savvy workers.
So there is no clear leader, and the battle is still undecided. By looking at and trying both products, you can see how similar their touch and feel are, which is not the least ‘feature’ that decided their success. Thus, let us proceed to the key principles of SaaS design to get a better understanding of why it is so important.
Top 10 Key Principles of SaaS Design
UI/UX is a combination of various components, such as information architecture, interface design, visual design, functionality, and user-friendliness. Namely, UI/UX encompasses the whole user journey, including availability, accessibility, and even customer support — everything that provides optimal software performance and gives the best outcomes.
SaaS products typically involve different categories of users, e.g. end-users, administrators, support, maintenance, etc. Implementation of the key UI/UX principles and practices balances technical requirements, stakeholders’ tastes, and users’ needs while meeting financial business objectives.
The 1st Principle: Simple Navigation and Information Architecture
Navigation and information architecture should be user-friendly since they are the primary tools for users to find what they need when using a SaaS product. Navigation should be easy and information should be quickly accessible with additional features at bay, especially when dealing with a SaaS app that has multiple levels of permissions.
SaaS products that nailed their information and navigation:
- HubSpot Marketing: a tool to create marketing campaigns.
- Hootsuite: a dashboard for social media marketing and management.
- Flow: a tool for task and project management.
The 2nd Principle: Easy Sign-Up Process
SaaS products always use a subscription-based business model that includes either a freemium plan or some sort of free trial. This is reason enough to make a sign-up process as frictionless as possible, despite a wish to gather as much data as possible about your user. Long forms can scare away lots of potential users.
The nature of SaaS products provides a lot of touchpoints as users engage with them. Thus, it is possible to gather all the data you need later. At the beginning ask as few details of your users as possible, e.g. email, name, and payment method (sometimes, it may only be an email as the first step).
SaaS products that nailed their sign-up process:
- FreshBooks: an accounting tool.
- MailShake: a tool for sales engagement.
- InVision: a digital product design platform.
The 3rd Principle: Focus on Users’ Needs
An excellent product is made through the validation of design choices and thorough user research which is a part of the discovery phase. Since decision-makers and end-users represent different people, user research is needed to remind them for whom a product gets created. When user research gets neglected, it leads to serious damage to a product’s future success.
A product should connect with your users. For example, if a product is not for tech-savvy users, it is better not to use any technical jargon and such. It is helpful to think about how and why users can switch to your SaaS product instead of using the tool they already know?
SaaS products that nailed their users’ needs:
- Groove: a tool for customer support.
- MailChimp: a tool for automated marketing.
- WordPress.com: a hosting service.
The 4th Principle: Simple Onboarding
Much as the sign-up, cluttered onboarding can scare users away. If your users don’t understand what your product can do, they may churn even before becoming full-fledged users.
Simple onboarding can give users value and satisfaction, increase customer lifetime value (CLV), and can also serve as a promotional tool. To help customers learn about the key features, make them self-explanatory or create interactive tutorials for the new users.
SaaS products that nailed the onboarding:
- Slack: a cloud-based team collaboration tool.
- Coschedule: a social media marketing tool.
- BuzzSumo: an analytic tool.
The 5th Principle: Feature Segmentation
Nicely segmented and organized features will ease product usability. It is possible to achieve this by grouping related features together.
SaaS products that nailed feature segmentation:
- Slack: a tool for team communication.
- Buffer: a social media tool.
- CleverTap: a tool for customer engagement and retention.
The 6th Principle: Simple and Beautiful Design
SaaS products are complex, so their design should be predictable and clean. The basic rules of such a design include using no more than 2–3 fonts, no more than 2–3 colors, and keeping the style consistent on each page. Design should not inherit the complexity of a product. Design patterns should be standardized and intuitive, thus making the product sticky and habit-forming.
A lot of thought should also be given to the design layout. It can become that special ingredient that will distinguish a product in a highly competitive market.
SaaS products that nailed design:
- Quip: a tool for content collaboration.
- Dropbox: a back-up and synchronization tool.
The 7th Principle: Cross-Device Experience
Nowadays, when users are constantly online, personal and professional areas of life do not have those clear boundaries they had before. People tend to check on work tools even when they are not at work. Sometimes it is justified, there might be some unresolved issues to take care of or task to monitor, either way, that is why a SaaS product should provide a cross-platform experience.
You may also choose not to include all available SaaS product features in its mobile version. A mobile app can contain only the core functionality. In case there is no mobile app planned at all, add a separate button or guide for mobile users on how to add a shortcut icon on a home screen.
SaaS products that nailed cross-platform experience:
- Mailchimp: a tool for email marketing automation.
- Google Spreadsheets: an online spreadsheet tool.
The 8th Principle: Data Visualization
If a product has a dashboard, its UI/UX should not be neglected, since users will spend quite some time exploring it. Include a visualized report on key performance indicators (KPI) that are valuable to your target audience.
SaaS products work with lots of data and users. A dashboard will showcase a helpful summary of all that data that can win your customers’ preferences.
SaaS products that nailed data visualization:
- Klipfolio: an online dashboard platform.
- SEMrush: online visibility management and content marketing tool.
The 9th Principle: Customization
The customization provides users with a sense of empowerment and ownership. By offering rich customization options to users, you can satisfy their distinctive tastes and preferences.
Whether it be color themes, customizable dashboards, custom filters or so, it is good to keep around 20% of functionality customizable. Too much customization can overwhelm users.
Mixpanel, a product analytic tool, nailed customization perfectly.
The 10th Principle: Help and Customer Support
When any issues arise, users will try to search for answers themselves or ask for online help. An easily available extensive help database and online support are what any SaaS product needs.
Yet, it is also important to optimize other channels of user communication: email, live online support, social media, bots, chats, etc. It is even possible to bring FAQ to another level by automatization, e.g., by creating a FAQ bot. Such bots are connected to a FAQ database and are self-learning, so in time they will predict questions users may ask. Any questions that are not in a FAQ database can trigger a ticket creation that can be answered manually or by adding requested data into the database.
SaaS products that nailed customer support:
- FreshBooks: an accounting tool.
- Agorapulse: a social media management tool.
Conclusion
Overall, an excellent design resolves users’ simple needs, motives, and goals. High-quality visuals and interface do an outstanding job and simplify the workflow and make the user journey easier. Implementing the best practices of UI/UX helps to engage users and reduce user frustration and customer churn.
If you need technical expertise, want to be sure that your project budget will suffice, or wondering how to validate a software idea before building it, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Onix’s experts to get your answers.
