Viewing All Catalyst Resources Blog Posts

For part II of my post on energy management, I want to give a sampling of key principals that are needed for the design of climate change energy adaptation applications, particularly when delivered as SaaS or mobile. These principles are just a few of the best practices we have developed from work on just under 400 applications (desktop, web/SaaS, and mobile).
View complete post

Venture capitalists here in Silicon Valley are shifting their clean technology investment strategy. They're focusing less on new innovative clean energy technologies and more on ideas that could have a faster payoff but a smaller impact, such as software for monitoring and reducing energy consumption or demand response management systems that enable commercial/industrial clients to manage load and maintain economic control. We design the user experience and application interfaces that make it intuitive, engaging, informative and compelling to use and audit these tools.
View complete post

One of my team members is very involved with software vendors in AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction), CAD (Computer Aided Design), BIM (Building Information Management) and PLM (project lifecycle management).  He sees collaboration and document management using software-as-a-service (SaaS) and mobile as playing an increasingly important role in these markets. Based on some of our recent projects and a growing number of inquires, I have to agree. Success will be based on delivering a great user experience anywhere, anytime, on any device.
View complete post

At Catalyst we have completed several SaaS projects in fuel management, carbon accounting and energy management so a colleague wanted to get our thoughts on why the luster seems to have dulled for the energy and environmental management industry that looked so bright and rapidly growing only a year ago.
View complete post

Porting an existing on-premise software application to SaaS point-by-point is a recipe for failure. But it will be a slow, lingering death. You will burn through a lot more money then what you really needed to spend. It will take a lot longer than was necessary to get to market. And most importantly, you will end up with software that is far too complex for a SaaS implementation and that customers simply will not use.
View complete post

Migrating an application to SaaS (Software as a Service) means rethinking and redesigning the software in several fundamental ways including changing the hosting model from single to multi-tenant, the business model from perpetual license to subscriptions and the update cycle from years to months. But in our experience having designed over 60 SaaS applications, one of the most significant changes is in the management of the customer life cycle. Customer life cycle refers to the full progression of steps a customer goes through when exploring, purchasing, using, getting support and upgrading a product or service. With SaaS you build some or all of these steps directly into the software. This is a dramatic shift in software design but is essential to meet modern user expectations as well as achieve scalability and profitability. Let me detail this out further.
View complete post

With SaaS you want to be able to break your functionality into modular pieces that can be sold separately. These become separate profit streams that sum to more than the profit from a single SaaS product delivered at a single price. A second purpose for SaaS modular design is simplicity. If there are pieces of functionality that customers don't want, then you don't want them to have to deal with it. A third reason for modular design is ease and speed of new releases.
View complete post

We've been running a study with our recent clients as well as new prospects who were migrating to or already in-market with SaaS product. We asked the VP of Development or CIO to rate their software application on 36 SaaS application and UI design pain points and to identify where they were in their product development cycle.
View complete post

Catalyst Resources' work on over 350 SaaS and enterprisl application design projects has identified common design risks, that if not planned for and mitigated, could derail the successful delivery of any business-critical software or enterprise cloud computing project.
View complete post

Today while taking a quick break over lunch to peruse my RSS feeds, I read this entertaining and informative post which asks the question: Why does it take the introduction of an iPad, an Android tablet, or some other new device for a company to worry about the basics of creating apps that are usable and effective? Why have most people decided that it’s OK if PC apps are difficult to work with?
View complete post

Many financial services firms, particularly insurance and banking, have made significant investments in legacy software/hardware and are risk adverse to moving to Rich Internet Applications and cloud application services for reasons of security and performance. Rather than wholesale replacement of existing applications, a more manageable and risk aware approach is to design new RIAs that augment what is already in place.
View complete post

If you are a senior executive responsible for delivering a SaaS software solution or mission critical application, the odds are against you that you will achieve an unconditional success. Most projects face challenges not because of technical mistakes, but rather from failures to identify risk and implement best practices to improve the quality and agility of application design decisions.
View complete post

There is a lot of confusion and FUD around the meaning of cloud computing, cloud applications and SaaS. It's understandable given all of the acronyms (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) and the fact that many "experts" and marketing types are simply using cloud buzzwords as a way to freshen their message. Here are some simple definitions, how user experience fits in, and where SaaS is headed.
View complete post

Personas are a tool we use in SaaS design to remove bias, build consensus, identify functionality/design opportunities, and tailor the SaaS environment to various segments to improve productivity and enable faster, more agile business processes and cycles.
View complete post

Undoubtedly you have heard about the great RIA war raging between Apple and Adobe. Apple claims that HTML5 is all you need and Flash has no future. Adobe shoots back that Flash is the best choice today and claims that it will remain relevant 3-5 years from now. So how do we make sense of this brouhaha as it relates to our own work designing SaaS and Rich Internet Applications for the Enterprise?
View complete post

When it comes to sustainability "Doing the right thing for the planet" is laudable on its own. But from a business perspective there needs to be other monetary, social and legal drivers to motivate action and for initiatives to succeed over the long term. What are the some of the common drivers behind organizational sustainability initiatives?
View complete post

David Bryne (Talking Heads) recently described how artists evolve styles of music that works for the environment in which it will be heard. This should also be true for UI design. Good mobile application is not just about creating simpler and more streamlined interfaces of desktop applications, it is about understanding how the context changes what makes for effective activities and designing for the limitations and unique opportunities enabled by the device.
View complete post

With on-premise software, profitability is defined by the intellectual property of the code and the value that it can command on a per-seat license. With SaaS, value is defined by the user experience that leads to customer retention and recurring revenue.
View complete post

This year Catalyst has seen a significant shift in our areas of focus and the kinds of applications and interfaces we are engaged to develop. Part of this reflects changes in our own areas of interest, particularly our work to support and develop sustainability initiatives. But I believe the shifts also reflect a larger move in the industry itself.
View complete post

I was thinking about Catalyst Resources and the way that we describe what we do. Sure we design Rich Internet Applications and efficient, aesthetic interfaces. We even target this by focusing on mission critical applications and modular, reusable UI. But this 'what' is not the motivator that actually makes us wake up every morning and go to work. That is not the 'why' we do what we do. What is in our DNA as a company, is a belief that we can make the world better, one application at a time.
View complete post

Many of our recent engagements have been around designing instrument control for mission critical applications. These interfaces enable workers to interact with equipment via an interface rather than mechanical gauges, switches and levers. These types of interfaces present their own unique set of challenges.
View complete post

I often talk about how mission critical applications have unique requirements when it comes to RIA and user experience design. Broadly speaking mission critical applications require a combination high-performance, at-a-glance clarity, security, redundancy, scheduling, reporting and scalability. I found that the easiest way to explain these terms was to give examples from our own client work.
View complete post

One of the challenges when discussing sustainability, has been to find a concise way to describe and organize the diversity of services and the potential $$s that fall under the rubric of sustainability. I've come up with a simple framework for classifying various sustainability efforts and services - a kind of Sustainability System of Record.
View complete post

What are the best practices in perceived performance for web applications that improve the user experience as well as a company's bottom line? Do small changes in perceived performance really make a quantifiable difference?
View complete post

Cleantech will struggle to compete head-on against incumbents in established markets. It will take time to take root and become widespread. So I see the need for a parallel sustainability track focused on using software and hardware to optimize and manage existing energy and waste/resource management technology. But for sustainability software applications to succeed we need to innovate with user experience.
View complete post

Most of the pundits for health care IT concur that a move to electronic records and in particular, a move to a SaaS, will significantly benefit insurance companies, hospitals, and physicians. But how and where does a company start in developing a SaaS solution? How do you undertake the project without creating a bloated, interminably delayed IT nightmare.
View complete post

I've been meeting with many VC firms, investors, and industry leaders in the Valley and it is readily apparent to me that sustainability is a topic on everyone's mind and and a business opportunity on which many startups and established players will focus over the next 5-10 years. Energy and environmental optimization will become a massive industry beginning in 2010. SaaS and user experience will play a central role in making sustainability applications successful.
View complete post

Increasingly, the driving force behind our clients wanting to move their business to a Software-as-a-Service model and using Rich Internet Applications, is the need to interact with customers and/or data in real-time, and to respond quickly to competitive opportunities or threats.
View complete post

Clients often ask which Rich Internet Application development tool they should choose - Flex, Silverlight, or an AJAX framework. While there are no hard and fast rules for selecting one technology over the other, there are some rules of thumb.
View complete post

While many of our engagements are focused on full-scale redesign projects or new venture capital-back startups, another large segment of our work is devoted to retooling projects where companies need to migrate legacy applications to SaaS or Rich Internet Applications. Here, reusable UI design systems can play an especially significant role in streamlining redevelopment cycles and shortening implementation windows.
View complete post

The financial services industry is undergoing a significant transformation in how applications are designed and delivered. A key driving force behind this shift is the growing imperative to be global both in terms of providing customer-facing services and in taking advantage of a distributed global workforce.
View complete post

You may have noticed that CatalystReources.com has added a new Case Studies and Clients section. Our purpose for adding these sections is to give visitors a quick visual sampling of the types of projects and clients we have worked with.
View complete post

Building modular, reusable user interface components is different from building custom application UI. Reusability however, although easy in concept, is not easy in practice. Each UI component needs to work as an independent (but cooperative) 'machine' with a distinct role or responsibility.
View complete post

While many SaaS services like to explain the value of their SaaS in terms of features (it does X) or cost saving (it is cheaper than on-premise), reality is that these 'value propositions' position your service as a commodity. It is inevitable that a new SaaS firm will end up beating you at your own game (price and features). An alternative value proposition is to design the SaaS to incorporate your entire extended enterprise into the business process - your customers, partners, and suppliers.
View complete post

Last week it was announced that Amazon has purchased the hot e-commerce up-and-comer Zappos. Among the many things I found interesting about this announcement was how I didn't associate any kind of logo or visual identity with either company. The brand that defines these online companies are not the visuals that the typical interactive design firm spends so much time developing. The brand for these web companies is the interface and user experience.
View complete post

Effective on-boarding is critical in terms of determining the tenure and profitability of a SaaS customer relationship. The challenge for SaaS vendors is to immediately gain and leverage an early understanding of new customers behavior and then drive relevant communications to facilitate both immediate on-boarding and continued engaged use for the first 60 days. Monitoring at the user experience level is an effective way both to to correct drop out points during the first 60 days, improve effectiveness and efficiency for your customers, and quickly determine how to modify your application on a regular cycle to meet user needs, increase sales and up sell, and reduce churn.
View complete post

Pure on-demand SaaS is not appropriate to all business models. The underlying business value of a piece of software may require unique customer processes, or complex integration tasks that can't be automated. But the steps in the SaaS life cycle framework are still appropriate for developing a roadmap on how to design your SaaS. Examine the touch-points in the life cycle and determine how you design your application to address them - based on your specific business and technological situation.
View complete post

"A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution is not simply a new way to package and deliver applications. It is a fundamental shift in the relationship between the software service provider and the customer." This is the kind of thing you read all of the time in the IT press or hear from pundits at conferences. By now most senior executives in companies are saying "OK, I understand I have to have a new mindset. But what $@!% does that really mean in terms of how I build my application and my business?"
View complete post

I was reviewing the latest FinTech 100 and noticed that 4 of the top 10 firms are recent or current clients of Catalyst Resources. To be sure, the economic downturn has impacted the financial services sector and almost everyone is aggressively seeking ways to cut costs. However we find that many of these firms are also responding by investing in new applications that improve ROI, manage risk, reduce business process inefficiencies and attract new customers.
View complete post

Choosing the right application design firm for a mission critical application, is in itself a mission critical decision. If only you could give a potential firm a test drive to learn how they think.
View complete post