Every VP of development knows the value of creating a shared library of commonly used functions. Modularity and reuse are standard practices for most coders and absolutely mandatory for scalable application development.
But the imperative for modularity in application user interface design (UI) is often overlooked. This is surprising because the presentation layer of any enterprise application is the most frequently updated and often one of the most time-intensive aspect of the development process.
In today’s market, services and software applications need to change as businesses and their competition evolve and shift. This is particularly true for SaaS which inherently is all about the ability to adapt quickly and come out with frequent updates. A Rich Internet Application UI with modular reusable components enables your development teams to implement changes faster and cleaner. This flexibility, simplicity, and adaptability translates to substantive ROI as well as faster time-to-market.
The alternative (and more common) approach to UI design is custom screen-by-screen production. A designer builds screens as they are planned - essentially PhotoShop comps are converted into individually-built Flash or HTML/JavaScript user screens. It certainly is faster to prototype and demo this way. But when it comes to deployment of a scalable SaaS application that can can be quickly reconfigured, it is essential to spec, user validate, coordinate and develop a component-based, modular user interface system.
Developing a modular UI obviously takes more time in the early stages. But the approach pays off very quickly both in time and dollars. A UI library of modular, reusable code, can save distributed development teams up to 85% in application front-end development cycles and makes it much easier to change directions then it would with customized screens. The added benefits include increased consistency of function across applications, a standardized look, easier adherence to regulatory compliance standards and reduced QA time.
For SasS in particular, modular reusable UI is an essential component to profitability and success.
Categories: SaaS, Resuable UI