Good UI, Bad UX or Not All That Glitters is Gold

When users say "simple", they mean to describe something incredibly easy to use. But easy to use doesn’t equal easy to create and that’s the main complexity of simplicity. 

So, when we as SaaS product designers say "simple," we mean the highest goal of design, which requires a lot of planning, research, and vision to achieve, because there is always a huge amount of data and many complex algorithms behind simplicity.

For instance, look at the Dropbox software.

Or Apple Pay interface.

Both products seem simple, but that’s not completely true. Though they are accessible, easy to comprehend, and have a clean user interface, these products are very hard to implement technically. That’s why creating UI and UX for them is indeed difficult. To make such products look and feel simple, designers had to consider all the intricacies of their architecture, audience, and the market, which is a lot of work to do.

But despite all the difficulties, a lot of businesses choose to make design for simplicity one of their top priorities. Why? Perhaps because they understand the role of psychology in UX design.

Why do people need simplicity?

Human behavior is important in the design process. People need simplicity because they encounter the basic laws of UX every day in their life. 

See it yourself. Think of the Olympic logo. How can you describe it?

It’s unlikely that you would talk about it as a combination of connected lines or shapes. Most probably you’d say these are five circles that overlap each other. And that’s because circles in this situation are the most familiar objects your brain can identify with the least cognitive effort.

This is called the law of Prägnanz, the cornerstone of the Gestalt laws of grouping. It tells us that the human eye enjoys finding order and simplicity in complicated forms and turning them into unified shapes. This is because our brain strives to keep us from being overloaded with data.

Your UI can benefit from this law. Users see your interface as a whole, thus if you want to simplify their perception, choose basic forms and arrange them in ways that are clear and predictable. If you, vice versa, want to highlight some part of an interface - break this rule.

And here are some more evidence that the human brain strives for simplicity in complexity.

• Zeigarnik Effect describes people’s tendency to give incomplete tasks more attention than finished ones. We are more likely to remember the information we might need to complete an unfinished task because of the psychological stress produced by this unfinished state.

You can apply this law when you want to push users to complete a certain task or help them cope with a difficult job. Giving users some extra motivation, like adding a progress bar to your product’s onboarding increase the chances that people will proceed until the end and not churn.

• According to Hick's law, the number of options a person has influences how long it takes them to make a certain decision. The more options there are, the longer it takes to perform an action. This way, if you want to simplify your app by applying this principle, limit the number of choices you offer your users (for example, the number of options in a menu bar).

• Peak-end rule claims that people's memory retains only the strongest positive or negative moments and the outcome we got from a certain experience (not the total experience). That’s why, when developing a complex product, try to make the user forget about any activities that require a lot of time and effort to cope with.

• Tesler’s law states that every application/product/software has a certain amount of complexity that cannot be decreased and therefore must be handled by either the developer/designer or the user. 

Larry Tesler, the explorer of the law, claimed that complexity does not vanish, but rather shifts from one area to another. Therefore, if you decide to make the app simpler for users, this complexity will unavoidably be transferred to the developers/designers. Consider carefully how much complexity should be transferred from users to developers and the other way around.

These were only five out of dozens of psychological laws, discovered by scientists and proven with experiments that show us how to balance between simplicity and complexity in your design. Learning about such experiments allows us to formulate simplicity design principles that help you eliminate challenges on users’ way to their goal.

Simplicity principles of UI/UX design

Businesses are constantly trying to build simple and usable products. They want more features and advanced technologies together with a lightweight and easy-to-use format. But is it possible to add functionality without compromising simplicity and usability?

From our more than 7-year experience in designing SaaS products, we can say that though it all depends on each individual case, there are simplicity principles in product design you can apply to any kind of application, no matter how complex it is.

Below are ten of them.

Products need to be focused on value 

We all know that you can't please everyone. This statement is also true for your software. If you try to design an app to be useful for a great variety of audiences, most probably people won’t understand what problem it intends to help them with and thus they won’t use it.

To make your application simple, identify its core value and people that can really benefit from using your product, and keep this value in mind throughout the whole design process.

For instance, while Yahoo’s home page offers its visitors a lot of different features (many of which may be irrelevant and distract users from their main goal), Google uses its clean UI to focus people’s attention on one core goal only - search.

When in doubt, just remove 

The fastest and easiest way to reach simplicity is by getting rid of unnecessary elements in your interface. Be it a rarely used button, a sort of secondary information, or some fancy, but distractive formatting style, if it doesn't make your users closer to achieving their goal, remove it.

Eliminate the need to choose when it is not required

Making any decision takes time and effort. When asking users to make too many choices, you create an additional cognitive load giving them work they’d prefer not to do (recall Hick’s law we’ve discussed earlier in this article). So in order to make the user experience easy, support quick decision-making.

For example, when we were redesigning a cloud phone system, we noticed that on an “Add a new lead” page, a phone number field had no clearly defined format, so users had to decide themselves how to fill in the number (separating digits with dashes, using brackets, or some other variant). This caused confusion and uncertainty. 

To resolve this issue, we added a small tooltip to make users adopt a standard phone number format.

Guide and handhold users

Sometimes we need extra instructions before we can complete a task or before our first-time experience. Instead of bombarding customers with loads of learning information, offer them contextual help. To make users feel comfortable using your app, you can add small tooltips, enable autofill and autocorrect, add error messages, support inline edits, and so on.

Meet users' expectations

Each person that comes to your product has some previous experience that forms certain expectations about your app. Meeting those expectations makes users feel in control over your application and therefore makes it feel more trustworthy. 

Apply common UX patterns and limit the number of creative design innovations to help users adapt to the new interface quicker and focus on what matters most.

For example, the three dots notation typically indicates that there are more options available when clicking on it.

Choose the correct data visualization method

As humans are physiologically wired to analyze everything around them through visual means, representing data visually boosts content’s effectiveness by making information easier to perceive, process, and retain. So, help customers make data-driven decisions faster by choosing an appropriate form of data visualization.

For example, multi-line charts suit best to describe subtle variations in data, while bullet chart does a great job of showing a significant indicator in comparison to a goal.

Show users where they are currently in the process

Giving users a clear understanding of where in the app they come from and where they should go next removes uncertainty and makes their overall experience more intuitive. This principle is especially relevant for complex processes.

Focus users' attention on the elements that matter

Every step of the path your user takes to achieve their objectives has elements that are more important and will get them closer to the end result. Find such places and make them the focus of user attention.

Something that stands out from the crowd is more likely to be remembered. When we use bold type, or choose a distinctive color so that it differs somehow from the rest of the page elements, we highlight important information in a row of similar data.

Create a hierarchy using typography

You may have heard before that most users don’t read. That’s true, but UX readability is still important when designing for simplicity. 

People scan your app looking for signals that would tell them “this information is worth paying attention to”. You can arrange the information on a page so that it will guide the user through their journey. This way, descriptive headings and labels, font size and color, the use of capitalization, and so on, allow you to create hierarchy and help users ensure they are in the right place, taking the right action.

Group components that relate together

If you remember the law of Prägnanz we’ve discussed here, you should remember that people’s brain perceives visual objects as a single form (not separate components). Therefore, it’s much easier for users to deal with several groups of content rather than multiple unrelated elements.

You can indicate that content relates to a certain group by putting it in one drop-down menu, using the same background color, adding borders, and the like.

For example, you can group related features together using the same style and size of menu icons.

Seems like simple design is not that easy to create. Also, you can’t just apply these principles without understanding the product idea, conducting proper planning, and research. Here’s how design for simplicity looks in real life. 

A real example of the complexity of simplicity

Meet Prift, a personal finance platform that helps people achieve their long-term financial goals quicker.

Eleken was hired to create an MVP for it. Our goal was to design a platform that makes the complex process of controlling personal finances simple and understandable for a regular user. Together with a Prift team, we managed to create a clear, accessible, and minimalist interface that you can see in the screenshots above.

But what really stands behind this simple UI/UX design?

• A detailed user research to discover the true needs of the target audience.
• Competitive analysis and benchmark research to assess competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and, based on these findings, define the unique value proposition.
• Market research to understand the legal constraints of providing financial advice in the UK and coming up with ideas on how to adjust the app to existing rules.
• Feature prioritization to correctly define that minimum set of workable features.

• Wireframing to think out and visualize a consistent platform structure aligned with a product vision.
• A/B testing to determine which of several screen variants meets users' expectations and needs the most and will form future MVP.

• Prototyping to present a finished platform design with structure, functions, content, and visual components.

• Constant communication via Slack and regular video calls twice a week to discuss the design process progress and results.

And that’s even not the full list. Three people and about 200 hours stand behind this product. Not a very “simple” design, right?

The thing is that both complexity and simplicity in design are subjective. That is, different people perceive them differently. So, to successfully apply the UX principles we’ve discussed above and start reducing complexity, you have to first of all understand what is complex about your product. 

Once your app gets to a stage where you can present something visual like a sketch, wireframe, or mock-up, show it to users to get their feedback. Analyze their feedback carefully and be ready to iterate. And remember that there is always a lot of work behind every simple product.

Gartner's research on the New B2B Buying Journey shows that when B2B buyers are considering a purchase, they spend only 17% of their time meeting with sales representatives. Most of the time buyers run their own independent research on the web. 

People are looking for an offer that suits their needs in the best possible way. A clear and distinctive value proposition is something that can catch the prospect's eye just like good packaging stands out even at the loaded supermarket shelf.

But you can rarely find a clear and distinctive value proposition on the SaaS market because the statements companies use to self-identify are usually…

1. meaningless,
2. unfocused,
3. lack points of difference.

In this article, Eleken UI/UX agency will help you to figure out how to build your SaaS value proposition in a way that you'll avoid the three pitfalls from above. 

If you want more information on the idea of the enterprise value proposition and frameworks that help to coin one, take a look at our article on defining a product value proposition.

Find the core value your customer gets

The value proposition is your SaaS business and its competitive advantage in a short, memorable promise of value to be delivered, that you can communicate through marketing, sales, and customer success messaging.

The idea seems easy and straightforward if you sell something you could actually grasp, like coffee, furniture, or cat food. But for SaaS companies that sell non-physical products, it's hard to find the right words. Thus, the SaaS market is full of senseless landing pages with pompous titles. 

Words like “world-class” or “cutting-age” are just white noise, they don’t give any information to the user. The rest of the titles name the product category at best but communicate no value to draw the attention as the viewer's eyes skim through the page. 

To make your value proposition meaningful, start by boiling it down to the key benefit your customers get. According to Tomasz Tunguz, a venture capitalist at Redpoint, all value propositions of SaaS startups can be broken down into three fundamental categories.

1. Apps that increase revenue

“Buy our software and you’ll double your leads.” Who wouldn't want that?

Software that increases revenue is the easiest to sell since for most companies, growth is the top priority. Most lead generation, marketing automation, and sales acceleration apps fall under this category.

Look at what Salesforce claims on its main page. The company literally sells users their future profits. The company backs its promises with a specific figure and makes it trustworthy by quoting a real company and a real person behind it.  

2. Apps that reduce costs

“With our software, you’ll save millions of dollars.” Not so impressive as the promise to earn millions of dollars, but still works. Software that cuts down the costs offers efficiency as their value proposition. Such solutions optimize workflows, automate operations and remove silos out of your work. 

Take PandaDoc, a business document processing app, as an example. Making your processes more efficient, the app can reduce the amount of work to be done, and, as a result, operational costs. Thus, PandaDoc promises to “take the work out of your document workflow”. 

3. Apps that improve productivity

“We’ll help you collaborate better, therefore you’ll be able to increase your revenue/reduce your costs.” To this category belong collaboration tools like Figma, Zoom, or Slack.

Productivity apps’ value proposition is one step away from revenue increases or cost reductions, therefore it may sound somewhat blurry. But since the word went remote, the correlation between team productivity and business success became obvious. So productivity as a value proposition requires no further explanations.

Here’s a value proposition example from Figma. The company allows the work to be done remotely, and therefore, the revenue to come.

Narrow the target market

The product or service you are selling matters, but the people you are selling to are equally important. The better you know your target audience, the easier it will be to offer them true value. And the best way to know your target audience for a startup is to narrow it down to a specific group of people.

Let’s see how it works on the example of Gridle, one of Eleken’s clients.

Gridle (later changed its name into Clientjoy) is a growth operating system, it belongs to the same product category as Salesforce and sells its users the ability to increase their revenue.

Salesforce, as well as most large CRM (customer relationship management) companies, focus on large or medium-sized enterprises. To stand out from their competitors, Gridle decided to focus on a narrow niche of small creative agencies and freelancers.

What Gridle offers on their website

Small businesses and freelancers, who used to run their businesses in a fast and flexible way, feel especially keenly that CRM systems are too damn complicated. Using the CRM doesn’t help with customer management, it rather slows the workflow down. Looks like an opportunity window for a niche lightweight CRM.

Make your value proposition distinctive

Have you managed to determine your audience and the core value that the audience gets? You're halfway there, but it’s time to think about your points of differentiation.

Each software category has a multitude of providers with similar offerings. Although each provider tries to differentiate their offering, most of them appear to be equal to a potential user doing a cursory review.

To make your software value proposition more specific, figure out how you can do your job differently.

Everyone in the business of CRM shouts with a megaphone that “CRM is easy,” but if you ask a crowded room how many find their CRMs easy, there would hardly be a hand showing. 

Customer relationship management apps are elephants in the world of SaaS products. They are huge and sluggish, they have a hard time trying to mediate conflicting needs of sales and marketing staff. The former need to enter minimal client information quickly. The latter need to be able to profile and segment customers, which requires more detailed information. Trying to satisfy both parties, CRMs often end up satisfying none.

With the CRM niche’s bad rap in mind, the Gridle team decided to make simplicity of use and a smooth user experience their distinctive feature. To turn the ambition into reality, Gridle used Eleken’s product redesign services.

It took us about three months to redesign Gridle. We conducted a UX audit and numerous user interviews to detect the product’s bottlenecks. Next, we recreated the entire platform to make it more intuitive and usable. When Gridle's CTO showed the updated design to some of their users, they were excited and said that they couldn't wait to start using the revamped app.

The key takeaway

So here are three questions Gridle answered to build a quality value proposition:

1. What do they do? CRM software that helps users to increase revenue.
2. Who is their target audience? Small agencies and freelancers.
3. How do they do it differently? Stellar user experience is what sets Gridle apart from competitors.

Looks like Gridle’s value proposition worked out pretty well. Six months after our cooperation successfully ended, the company raised $800,000 in a Series A funding round.

If you want to build an effective value proposition for your SaaS application, be like Gridle. 

• Don’t use an Oxford dictionary to find extravagant, yet meaningless words for your headings. Better think of the core benefit you offer.
• Remember that you can’t please everyone. So you better decide on your target niche.
• Think of audiences’ pain points that your competitors are missing and find a way to solve them. That would help you to excel in a crowded market.

And if you decide that exceptional user experience is going to be your distinctive feature, hire Eleken UI/UX designers.