In late spring of this year, I received an email from M.T. Hoogvliet, a student of Interaction Design in the Netherlands. He was writing a thesis on SaaS Interface Design with a goal to develop a set of user interface guidelines for Software-as-Service web applications. He was proposing to answer some interesting questions:
- How to define a SaaS application?
- What are the key elements in designing general web-based software?
- How does a SaaS application differ from general web-based software?
- On what points does a SaaS application typically need to appeal to a user?
Hoogvliet noted that “SaaS and web application design falls somewhere in between existing guidelines for designing interfaces because two previously separate disciplines (desktop and web) are merging together in SaaS.” He also lamented the dearth of articles or literature on the topic. He contacted Catalyst Resources to ask us to identify the best practices we use for designing SaaS applications.
We shared some of our initial work around the customer life cycle approach to SaaS strategy and design. Hoogvliet integrated this with his other research to produce a comprehensive thesis offering a set of web-based design principles along with specific guidelines for designing a profitable SaaS. As a real world case study, he also developed a SaaS application to design, develop and use a CMS.
Mr. Hoogvliet has given Catalyst Resources permission to make the thesis available for download. I strongly encourage user experience and interaction designers, as well as ISVs and enterprise application developers, to review this work. The thesis will be a valuable component for a strategic analysis of your own SaaS applications plans. (Note: I recommend that anyone with an MTV-generation attention span, should jump straight to chapter 4.5 - around page 35 - to begin).
Download SaaS Interface Design - Designing web-based software for business purposes (336 KB pdf).
Feel free to comment about the ideas in the thesis or offer extensions to Hoogvliet’s analysis.