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What Makes a Good SaaS UX Design? 7 Examples and Best Practices
If you’ve spent enough time on the internet, you would have undoubtedly come across websites with horrendous UX designs where navigation is terrible and the product is essentially impossible to use.
However, while it may be easy to spot terrible UX designs, it can often be difficult to spot good designs due to how seamless and pleasant the experience can be.
Regardless of whether you’re looking for inspiration to model your site after or if you’re simply curious as to how good UX designs look, you’ve come to the right place. Here are 7 of the most famous examples of good SaaS UX designs.
How to Spot Good UX Designs
Before we dive into the list, it’s important to understand which aspects make up the foundation of a good UX design.
Even though UX designs are subjective to the users’ interpretation, there are still certain core values that designers live by to ensure a generally positive reception.
There are 3 main aspects to creating good UX designs:
Keep It Simple
With minimalism on the rise, keeping things simple is both in style and functional. In addition to being pleasing to the eye, users with all levels of digital literacy would also be able to navigate your website with ease.
However, don’t be deceived into thinking that simplicity is, well, simple. Many simple-looking UX designs were painstakingly crafted over a long period of time.
Does it Work?
Of course, in addition to looking simple, your UX design must also be easy to use. If the design hinders usability in any way (for instance, being too simple to function or too complex to navigate), all your efforts in making the design minimalistic would be counterproductive.
Another aspect of usability to consider is ensuring that your product works as intended. For SaaS products, this means ironing out bugs and improving features through continuous updates while also ensuring that your product retains or increases its value for your users.
Looks Do Matter
Last but not least, a good UX design must look appealing to its user base. While this might seem like the least important among all the other aspects, in a modern, crowded marketplace, your SaaS’s aesthetics might be the deciding factor in determining whether the users click on your website to learn more or if they close the tab.
In fact, studies have shown that people take on average 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about a website, and that about 75% of users have linked a website’s design to its credibility. This means that regardless of how great your product might be if your website design isn’t appealing enough, it’s likely that users will never begin using it in the first place.
Now that we’ve established what good UX designs look like and how crucial they are in ensuring the success of a SaaS application, it’s time to start viewing great UX design examples that we can learn from.
1) Google Workspace
Chances are, if you have ever surfed the internet, you’ve used or at least come across one of Google Workspace’s many products.
The Workspace includes a host of apps that Google offers not only to businesses, but also individuals as well, which are comprised of Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Calendar, and many other tools that would facilitate collaboration and real-time discussions.
One of the many reasons why Google remains a huge influence in today’s technological space comes down to how well they’ve conquered all three foundations of UX design.
Take Google Calendar, for instance. Upon opening the app, users are shown all days of the week, and any events or meetings they have scheduled for specific times. The layout is simple and intuitive, and useful features such as creating new events, checking the team’s availability, and rescheduling are all easily available to users. Events and tasks are also labeled with different colours depending on their categories, creating an attractive and functional planner.
Minimalism and usability are also traits that are championed across all of Google’s other apps, so it’s worth taking inspiration from how this tech giant has navigated its UX designs.
2) Slack
To put it simply, Slack is an online communication tool that allows teams to work together seamlessly. One of the reasons why Slack has seen amazing success in the recent years is because of its focus on good UX design - particularly its usability.
To start, Slack integrates tons of other apps that a working team might need throughout a project - all without ever leaving the site. This means that teams would no longer need to juggle different tabs and simply start Teams calls, set deadlines in their Google Calendar, create alerts through Salesforce and more all within Slack itself, streamlining work a lot better than before.
Other usability features include Slack’s channels and huddles, which help to organise content and increases flexibility in communication, as well as its pre-built workflows, which automate certain aspects of one’s work life, saving them more time and increasing productivity.
One look at Slack’s frontpage would also show you other aspects of good UX design, with its lively colours and quick previews of various features.
3) HelloSign
In a world where remote work and international workplaces are becoming more common, HelloSign is quickly becoming an indispensable app to every company.
HelloSign helps its users set up legally binding e-signatures for any and all kinds of uses, including signing onboarding documents, sales contracts, financial agreements, and many more. Applauded for its simplicity and full range of usability, HelloSign is also another great UX example that you should take a closer look at.
Throughout the entire site, HelloSign uses an overarching conversational tone, guiding all users step by step into what might have been an otherwise dry and complex signing procedure. Additionally, HelloSign also brings to the table features such as integration with different work apps, tooltips to assist lost customers, and simple drag-and-drop functions to quicken the signature process.
Coupled with clean and professional pages, HelloSign has shown that an intuitive UX design can significantly improve conversion rates while also providing their clientele with a valuable, time-saving solution.
4) Asana
Asana is another productivity-boosting app that is used in many workplaces over the world as a project management tool. Within Asana, team members can keep track of each other’s progress on different projects, be assigned and reassign work, as well as start discussions under specific tasks.
Utilised by over one million teams globally, Asana’s UX design is arguably one that their customers find enjoyable.
From its homepage alone, potential customers are greeted with a plain white background and a split screen to pack in the maximum amount of information while still remaining simplistic. Users can also tick off tasks that are presented on the screen, giving them a taste of what Asana can offer. In the app itself, users can find a host of UX-enhancing features, including little celebratory creatures when you finish a task, and a customisable dashboard.
5) Shopify
As one of the biggest SaaS platforms in the world, Shopify is a leading e-commerce solutions providers, that, amongst other services, provides businesses with a platform to build their own websites.
Despite offering a wide range of services, Shopify still manages to keep its UX design easy to understand and visually appealing - a big reason why many clients have chosen them as opposed to their competitors.
Starting off with usability, the Shopify homepage showcases a header that shows its readers what they can help them with, including a handy ‘Start’ section, which may be great for those who aren’t too sure what they need. Many of the tools offered are free to use, which in turn would motivate customers to register with Shopify.
As for visual aesthetics and minimalism, Shopify cleverly uses a variety of differently-themed stores built using their app on their homepage via rotating banners and video previews, giving their brand the flexibility it needs.
6) Canva
Another SaaS that’s free to use and popular amongst netizens is Canva, a graphic design tool that is often used to create posters, social media posts, advertisements and more.
One of the reasons why Canva might be more appealing to users than apps such as Adobe Illustrator, for example, is because of how it makes designing look approachable and fun. With tons of ready-to-use templates and assets, as well as tutorials as to how to use certain tools, Canva’s UX was designed to be simple and user-friendly.
Besides that, Canva also offers free downloads of your completed designs in different file formats and compatibility with many other online apps, increasing its usability and value to its clients.
7) Dropbox
Last but not least, Dropbox is also a major SaaS with a UX design that works for its clients. Dropbox is a cloud storage service for all kinds of documents and programs, and it also helps to facilitate the transfer of large files between teams.
From its simple homepage, users can already expect a large range of usability and a minimalistic layout in the app. While the Dropbox app itself may not look too pleasing, it does provide a clean menu-type layout that makes it easy for users to organize and navigate, further boosting its functionality.
What is next?
Now that you’ve seen all these examples of good SaaS UX designs, you might have noticed that there is no set approach to designing UX. However, as long as you grasp the foundations of what makes a good UX design, you’re already well on your way to creating your dream UX design.
You may also want to look into UX tracking tools such as Howuku to help you further understand how users are experiencing your website. By seeing literally how they are experiencing your website like how you would watch a Youtube Video, and collecting valuable feedback directly from your website immediately.
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