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Designing for SaaS: UI/UX and Best Practices

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TL;DR

This article covers the best practices for designing a SaaS product’s UI/UX in 2024. You’ll get tips from professional designers and explanations on implementing these practices in your development process. Using this knowledge will help you build a better product for your customers.

Here are the 12 best practices in SaaS UI/UX design:

  1. Clarity and Simplicity: aim for minimal design by reducing unnecessary elements, using clear labels and icons, and employing high contrast for readability.
  2. Consistency: maintain uniformity across the platform with standardized layouts, colors, fonts, and terminology to reduce cognitive load and enhance user familiarity.
  3. User-Centered Design: prioritize user needs and preferences through detailed research, creating personas, and mapping user journeys. Establish feedback loops to continuously improve the design based on user input.
  4. Accessibility and Responsive Design: ensure the platform is accessible per WCAG standards and performs well on various devices to accommodate all users, including those with disabilities.
  5. Visual Hierarchy and Navigation: organize content to guide users naturally through the interface, making it easy to navigate and find information.
  6. Onboarding and Assistance: develop an effective onboarding process and provide comprehensive support to help users understand and utilize the platform effectively.
  7. Performance and Security: optimize platform performance and incorporate robust security measures to build trust and ensure a smooth user experience.
  8. Branding: create a strong, consistent brand identity across all elements of the UI to enhance user engagement and loyalty.
  9. Analytics and Testing: apply analytics to understand user behavior and continuously test the UI to optimize and adapt to user needs and feedback for ongoing improvement.

1. Clarity and Simplicity

Clarity

Purpose of Every Element:

  • Minimize Elements: ensure that each component on the interface serves a clear and necessary function. Avoid adding elements that don't contribute directly to user tasks or understanding.
  • Clear Labels and Icons: use language and icons that are immediately recognizable and familiar to the majority of users. Ambiguity can lead to frustration and errors.

Visual Clarity:

  • Contrast and Legibility: use high contrast between text and background to ensure readability. Fonts should be legible at various sizes and weights to accommodate different devices and user needs.
  • Consistent Imagery: use consistent imagery styles and icons across the platform to support recognition and learning.

Simplicity

Reduce Choices:

  • Prioritize Features: focus on the most important functionalities that fulfill the core objectives of your users. Too many features can overwhelm users and dilute the primary functions of the software.
  • Progressive Disclosure: only show users what they require when they need it. This design technique involves displaying only essential information initially, and revealing further details as and when necessary.

Streamline Tasks:

  • Step-by-Step Processes: break down complex tasks into manageable steps. This makes the process seem less daunting and helps guide users through each phase with more confidence.
  • Smart Defaults and Automation: set smart defaults to reduce the number of decisions users need to make. Automate repetitive tasks where possible to save users time and effort.

Minimize User Input:

  • Form Simplification: when designing forms, ask only for essential information. Use field auto-detection (e.g., filling in city and state based on postal code) and validation to reduce errors and accelerate the input process.
  • Predictive Search: implement predictive search to help users find options quickly without the need to type complete queries.

2. Consistency

Importance of Consistency

Familiarity and Ease of Use:

  • Consistency in design allows users to quickly become familiar with the workings of a SaaS platform. When users know what to expect, their proficiency and confidence in using the platform increases, which can lead to higher satisfaction and engagement rates.

Reduces Cognitive Load:

  • A consistent interface minimizes the need for users to rethink and reassess the function of components every time they interact with the platform. This reduced cognitive load makes the user experience smoother and more enjoyable.

Strategies for Achieving Consistency

Uniform Layouts:

  • Grid Systems: use a grid system for layout design to ensure that elements align correctly and are uniformly placed across different screens and pages.
  • Templates and Themes: develop a set of templates or themes that can be used across various parts of the platform. This helps maintain layout consistency and makes global updates easier to implement.

Consistent Use of Colors and Fonts:

  • Style Guides: create comprehensive style guides that detail the colors, fonts, and other visual elements that should be used. A style guide ensures that everyone involved in the development of the platform adheres to the same visual standards.
  • Theming: implement theming capabilities that allow for consistent colors and fonts across all user interfaces, with the ability to adapt to brand changes without extensive redesigns.

Standardized Terminology:

  • Unified Language: develop a consistent set of terms and phrases for actions and elements across the platform. For example, if you use “Delete” in one part, avoid using “Remove” in another for the same action.
  • Glossaries: maintain a glossary that can be referenced by all team members to ensure that language remains consistent in UI labels, help texts, and documentation.

Component Reusability:

  • UI Component Library: build a library of UI components such as buttons, forms, and dialog boxes. This ensures visual and functional consistency and accelerates the development process, as developers can reuse these components rather than creating them from scratch.
  • Design Systems: develop a design system that integrates all reusable components and the rules around their use. This system acts as a single source of truth for design and development teams, ensuring consistency across all products and services.

Testing for Consistency:

  • Regular Reviews: conduct regular design reviews and audits to ensure adherence to established guidelines and identify areas where inconsistencies may have crept in.
  • User Testing: engage with real users to test for consistency in understanding and usability. User feedback can highlight inconsistencies that internal teams may overlook.

3. User-Centered Design

User-Centered Design (UCD) is a foundational principle in creating effective SaaS platforms. It prioritizes the needs, behaviors, and preferences of users throughout the design and development process. Here’s how to effectively incorporate UCD into your SaaS UI/UX strategy:

Understanding Your Users

User Research:

  • Qualitative Research: conduct interviews, focus groups, and observations to gain in-depth insights into user needs and behaviors. This type of research helps uncover the 'why' behind user actions and decisions.
  • Quantitative Research: use surveys, analytics, and usability tests to collect data on how many users encounter specific issues or use certain features. This data helps validate the findings from qualitative research and scale insights.

User Personas:

  • Create Detailed Personas: develop user personas based on research data that represent different segments of your user base. These personas should include demographic details, goals, pain points, and typical behavior patterns.
  • Use Scenarios and Use Cases: for each persona, outline specific scenarios or use cases that describe how they interact with the platform. This helps in understanding the context in which the platform is used.

Journey Mapping:

  • Map the User Journey: create journey maps that outline the steps users take from initial contact with your platform to the completion of their goals. Include touchpoints, pain points, and moments of delight.
  • Identify Opportunities for Improvement: use the journey maps to pinpoint areas where users face difficulties or frustrations, and identify opportunities to enhance the user experience.

Establishing Feedback Loops

Collecting User Feedback:

  • In-App Feedback Tools: implement tools that allow users to easily provide feedback from within the application. This could be through feedback forms, chatbots, or contextual prompts.
  • Usability Testing: regularly conduct usability testing sessions where you can observe users interacting with your platform. This helps identify usability issues that might not be reported by users directly.

Analyzing and Acting on Feedback:

  • Data Analysis: systematically analyze the feedback to identify common themes or recurring issues. Use data visualization tools to help synthesize and make sense of the data.
  • Prioritize Changes: based on the analysis, prioritize changes that will have the most significant impact on user satisfaction and business goals.
  • Iterative Design: incorporate changes into the design and development process in an iterative manner. This allows for continual improvement and adaptation based on user needs.

Communication with Users:

  • Transparency: keep users informed about how their feedback is being used to improve the platform. This can build trust and encourage further engagement.
  • Change Management: when implementing significant changes based on user feedback, manage the transition carefully to avoid disrupting the user experience. Provide support and guidance to help users adapt to new features or interfaces.

4. Accessibility

  • Inclusive design: ensure that your SaaS platform is accessible to people with disabilities. This includes adhering to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards.
  • Responsive design: ensure the UI performs well on various devices and screen sizes, fitting both desktop and mobile users.

5. Visual Hierarchy and Navigation

Accessibility is a critical component of SaaS UI/UX design, ensuring that the platform is usable and beneficial to all users, including those with disabilities. Incorporating accessibility and responsive design principles broadens your user base and complies with legal standards and improves the overall user experience. Here’s how you can integrate these aspects into your SaaS design:

Inclusive Design

Adhering to WCAG Standards:

  • Understand WCAG Levels: familiarize yourself with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are organized into three levels of compliance: A, AA, and AAA. Aim for at least Level AA to ensure a good standard of accessibility.
  • Implementing WCAG Principles: ensure that your platform follows the four foundational principles of WCAG — perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. This includes providing text alternatives for non-text content, making all functionality available from a keyboard, and ensuring content is understandable and navigable.

Tools and Testing:

  • Accessibility Tools: use tools like WAVE, Axe, or Lighthouse to analyze and locate accessibility issues on your platform.
  • Regular Audits: conduct regular accessibility audits and involve users with disabilities in usability testing to identify and fix accessibility barriers.

Training and Awareness:

  • Educate Your Team: provide training for your design and development teams on accessibility guidelines and best practices. Ensuring that the entire team values and understands accessibility is crucial for creating an inclusive product.
  • Inclusive Design Practices: encourage practices such as using semantic HTML, ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) labels where necessary, and designing for keyboard-only navigation and screen readers.

Responsive Design

Flexible Layouts:

  • Use Responsive Frameworks: utilize CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation that facilitate responsive design. These frameworks come with pre-designed components that adapt to different screen sizes.
  • Media Queries: implement CSS media queries to adjust styles based on the device’s characteristics, such as its width, height, and orientation.

Testing Across Devices:

  • Device Emulation: test your platform using device emulation tools available in browser developer tools to see how your UI performs across various devices.
  • Real Device Testing: whenever possible, test on actual devices to get a true sense of performance and user experience.

Optimize Interactions for Touch:

  • Touch-friendly UI: ensure buttons, links, and form fields are of a sufficient size to be easily tapped on a touchscreen device. Consider touch target guidelines, generally recommending touch targets to be at least 44×44 pixels.
  • Avoid Hover-Only Interactions: since touch devices do not support hover as a user action, design alternatives for functionalities that rely on hover effects on desktops.

Performance Optimization:

  • Optimize Images and Assets: use optimized images and SVGs for better loading times and scalability across devices.
  • Lazy Loading: implement lazy loading for images and content, loading resources as they are needed rather than all at once, which can improve performance on mobile devices.

6. Onboarding and Assistance

Onboarding and user assistance are crucial elements in the UI/UX design of SaaS platforms, directly impacting user retention, satisfaction, and overall success. A well-crafted onboarding process educates new users effectively, while robust support ensures they can resolve issues and learn features independently. Here’s how to design these aspects effectively:

Effective Onboarding

Onboarding Goals:

  • Educate Quickly: the primary goal of onboarding is to quickly bring users up to speed on the core functionalities of your platform. Effective onboarding should make the first-time user experience as intuitive and enlightening as possible.
  • Encourage Engagement: use onboarding to highlight key features and demonstrate the value of the platform, encouraging continued engagement.

Designing the Onboarding Process:

  • Step-by-Step Tutorials: introduce users to the platform with guided tours that walk them through the basic features and actions they need to get started.
  • Progressive Disclosure: don't overwhelm users with information. Reveal more complex features gradually as the user becomes more comfortable with the basics.
  • Interactive Onboarding: engage users with interactive elements that require them to perform tasks as they learn, which can improve retention of information.
  • Personalization: if possible, tailor the onboarding experience to the user’s role or industry to make it more relevant and engaging.

Utilizing Multimedia:

  • Videos and Animations: short, concise videos or animations can be very effective in demonstrating how to use features or explaining complex concepts.
  • Screenshots and Diagrams: visual aids help clarify instructions and provide a visual reference that users can recall when using the platform independently.

Help and Support

Accessibility of Help Resources:

  • Easy Access: ensure that help resources are easy to find and access at any point in the user journey. Consider integrating a help button or persistent chat widget.
  • Searchable Help Center: a well-organized help center with searchable articles, how-to guides, and frequently asked questions (FAQs) can empower users to find solutions quickly.

Live Support:

  • Live Chat: provide live chat support for immediate assistance. This can be particularly useful for complex or urgent issues.
  • Chatbots: implement AI-driven chatbots that can handle common queries and provide instant responses, directing users to relevant resources or escalating issues to human agents when necessary.

Continuous Improvement:

  • Feedback Loops for Assistance: regularly gather feedback on the onboarding process and the usefulness of help resources. Use this feedback to make continuous improvements.
  • Analytics: use analytics to track how users interact with onboarding and support features. Search for patterns that indicate where users struggle or disengage, and address these areas.

Community Support:

  • Forums and User Communities: build forums or user communities where users can share tips, ask for advice, and provide peer-to-peer support. This alleviates pressure on your support team and builds a community around your platform.

7. Performance and Security

Performance and security are critical components in the UI/UX design of SaaS platforms, as they directly affect user trust and satisfaction. Ensuring that your platform is both responsive and secure is fundamental to providing a professional and reliable service. Here’s a detailed guide on how to optimize performance and integrate robust security measures:

Performance Optimization

Fast Load Times:

  • Optimize Images and Assets: compress and optimize images without losing quality. Use modern formats like WebP for images. Minimize the size of CSS and JavaScript files with tools like minifiers.
  • Efficient Code: write clean, efficient code and remove unnecessary scripts or plugins that can slow down your website. Utilize asynchronous loading for JavaScript to avoid blocking the display of elements.
  • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): distribute your content with a CDN to decrease latency by hosting your data across multiple, globally distributed servers.

Backend Optimization:

  • Database Performance: optimize database queries to ensure they are efficient and do not slow down application performance. Regularly review and optimize indexes.
  • Server Performance: use scalable server environments. Consider cloud services that can easily scale to meet peak demands.
  • Caching Strategies: implement effective caching techniques to reduce the load on your servers and speed up the content delivery on the client side.

Security Considerations

Secure Authentication:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): enhance security by requiring multiple forms of verification. This could include something the user knows (password), something the user has (a verified mobile device), and something the user is (biometrics).
  • Strong Password Policies: enforce policies that require complex passwords. Consider integrating password managers to facilitate users in maintaining strong, unique passwords without the need to remember them.

Data Encryption:

  • Encryption at Rest and in Transit: use strong encryption protocols such as TLS for data in transit and AES for data at rest to protect sensitive user information and prevent unauthorized data access.
  • Regular Security Audits: conduct regular security audits and penetration testing to identify and address vulnerabilities. Use automated tools and hire external security experts to perform these tests.

Secure Code Practices:

  • OWASP Top Ten: familiarize yourself with and mitigate the risks associated with the OWASP Top Ten web application security risks.
  • Input Validation: ensure that all inputs are validated to prevent SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other types of attacks.

Compliance and Privacy:

  • Adhere to Regulations: comply with relevant data protection regulations such as GDPRHIPAA, or CCPA depending on your geographical location and industry.
  • Privacy by Design: integrate privacy considerations into your design process. Provide users with clear information on how their data is used and secure their consent where necessary.

We previously covered 10 tips for launching a SaaS product from scratch. The article helps you understand the best way to start working on your product. Check it out as well!

8. Branding

Branding is a critical element in the design of a SaaS platform, as it significantly influences user perception and engagement. A strong and consistent brand identity across your platform can build trust, improve recognition, and create a cohesive user experience. Here are some best practices to effectively integrate branding into your SaaS UI/UX design:

Establishing a Strong Brand Identity

Define Your Brand Elements:

  • Visual Identity: develop a clear and distinct visual identity that includes your logo, color palette, typography, and other visual elements. These should reflect the core values and personality of your brand.
  • Brand Voice and Tone: establish a consistent voice and tone for all textual content across the platform. Whether professional, friendly, or informal, ensure it aligns with your brand personality and audience expectations.

Consistency Across All Touchpoints:

  • Style Guides: create comprehensive style guides that detail how brand elements should be used in the UI. This ensures consistency across different parts of the platform and helps maintain brand integrity.
  • Templates and Components: use templates and predefined components for common UI elements like buttons, headers, and footers. This not only streamlines development but also reinforces brand consistency.

Implementing Branding in UI/UX Design

Visual Design:

  • Color Scheme: use your brand’s color scheme strategically within the UI to evoke the desired emotions and actions. Ensure that the use of color enhances readability and usability.
  • Typography: choose fonts that are not only visually aligned with your brand but also readable and web-friendly. Consistent use of typography helps reinforce brand recognition.

Imagery and Icons:

  • Custom Imagery: use custom illustrations or photography that resonates with your brand’s aesthetic and values. This helps differentiate your platform from competitors.
  • Iconography: design custom icons that match your brand’s style. Consistent iconography enhances the user interface's intuitive nature and contributes to the overall visual cohesion.

Incorporating Brand Story:

  • About Pages and Brand Storytelling: use “about” pages or dedicated sections to tell your brand’s story. This can create an emotional connection with users and provide context about your company’s mission and values.
  • Content Strategy: integrate your brand’s voice into all content, including help articles, blog posts, and marketing materials. Consistent messaging reinforces brand identity and helps maintain a unified narrative across all platforms.

Monitoring and Evolving Brand Representation

User Feedback:

  • Gather Feedback: regularly collect user feedback to understand how they perceive your brand through your platform’s design. Use this information to make informed decisions about potential adjustments.
  • A/B Testing: conduct A/B testing on different branding elements to see which versions better resonate with your users and lead to better engagement and conversion rates.

Adaptation and Growth:

  • Stay Dynamic: be open to evolving your brand identity as your company grows and as user preferences change. Keeping your UI/UX design aligned with current trends while maintaining brand integrity is crucial for sustained relevance and engagement.

9. Analytics and Testing

Incorporating analytics and continuous testing into the UI/UX design process of a SaaS platform is essential for understanding user interactions and improving the product over time. Here’s how to effectively use analytics and engage in continuous testing to enhance your SaaS platform:

Using Analytics to Understand User Behavior

Implementation of Analytics Tools:

  • Choose the Right Tools: Select analytics tools that best fit the needs of your platform. Google AnalyticsMixpanel, and Hotjar are popular choices that offer a range of functionalities, from user behavior tracking to heat mapping.
  • Integration and Configuration: ensure that your analytics tools are properly integrated and configured to capture the specific data you require. This might include page views, conversion rates, user paths, and more.

Analyzing User Data:

  • Behavioral Insights: analyze data to understand how users interact with your platform. Look at which features are most used, where users spend the most time, and where they drop off.
  • Segmentation: segment user data to analyze behaviors based on different user types, devices, or other demographics. This can help identify specific needs or issues experienced by particular groups.

Data-Driven Decisions:

  • Identify Improvements: use analytics to pinpoint areas where users encounter difficulties, such as features with high exit rates or low engagement.
  • Hypothesis Testing: formulate hypotheses based on data insights, and use these hypotheses to guide your design improvements.

Continuous Testing for UI Optimization

Engaging Real Users:

  • Usability Testing: regularly conduct usability tests with real users to observe how they use the platform and to identify usability issues that might not be evident through analytics alone.
  • Remote Testing: use remote usability testing tools to reach a broader audience and gather more diverse insights, especially if your platform targets a global market.

A/B Testing:

  • Setup A/B Tests: implement A/B testing to compare two versions of a UI element to see which performs better in terms of user engagement, satisfaction, or conversion rates.
  • Iterative Testing: continue to test iteratively, making small changes and measuring improvements. This helps refine the user experience based on empirical data rather than assumptions.

Feedback Loops:

  • Incorporate Feedback Mechanisms: allow users to provide feedback directly within the platform. This can be facilitated through feedback buttons, pop-up surveys, or even direct communication channels like chat.
  • Act on Feedback: regularly review feedback and incorporate it into your testing cycles to ensure that user insights are actively contributing to the development process.

Monitoring and Adapting

Continuous Improvement:

  • Keep Evolving: use the insights gained from analytics and user testing to continuously improve the UI and UX. Technology and user expectations are always evolving, so your platform should too.
  • Performance Metrics: keep track of performance metrics over time to see the impact of changes. Monitor not only user behavior changes but also business outcomes like increased retention or higher conversion rates.

Summary

The principles of UI/UX design in SaaS are foundational to building software that looks appealing and performs exceptionally across various metrics of user satisfaction, accessibility, and retention. Following this guide will help your business get an outstanding solution in the crowded market.

Partner with a reliable SaaS development company like SapientPro to get a high-quality UI/UX design for your product. We’ll help you create a unique product that incorporates the industry’s best practices and our senior designers’ experience. Let’s team up now!

DEVELOPMENTBACKENDFRONTENDCUSTOMERSMANAGEMENTDESIGNBLOCKCHAINECOMMERCESaaSSTARTUPWEBDEVELOPMENTSEOMOBILEDEVELOPMENTSAPIENTPROTEAM BUILDINGELEARNINGTESTINGQA/QCESTIMATIONARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCENEWS MARKETINGDEBUGING
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Mind Reading Services would definitely be popular in software development offices. Why? Because it requires much communication for developers, project managers, and clients to be on the same page regarding desired results. This communication does not always go smoothly – so teams need to guess what their client really wants. According to developers, inadequate and vague requirements from clients (or their representatives) cause significant problems in development. And they are not wrong! Specifications provide teams with insight into what they must accomplish. More than that, they influence other crucial software development processes. Consequently, the most common cause of project failure can be traced to insufficient requirement elicitation. So this process deserves greater attention!

Kate

5 min read

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DEVELOPMENTWhy Should You Never Ignore Quality Assurance Practices in Your Project?

In order to build a new product or add a new feature, who would you need to give this task to? Surely a bunch of programmers would be enough, right? It’s their job to fix things like this. Nevertheless, software development involves a lot more nuance than that. Something that appears like a result of just a bunch of code is only real if a variety of specialists work together. These specialists include not only programmers but also project managers, designers, business analysts, and quality assurance engineers. Together, they form a fully functional team that can deliver the results you are looking for. Today we will focus on the later specialist – QA – and why their expertise is essential to the success of your project. Long story short: without QA practices your project is more likely to fail! Why? Well, let’s find out!

Kate

7 min read

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DEVELOPMENTOutsourcing Services: Types and Responsibility Scopes

It is very important to understand that every project is unique in terms of its vision, deliverables, objectives, and workflow. As each project advances through various stages, it even differs from itself. Usually, in the beginning, you know very vaguely what needs to be done. As the processes progress, you become more aware of the situation. So it goes without saying: a single outsourcing model is unlikely to apply to every project at all stages of development. Thankfully, software development firms that handle outsourcing offer different types of collaboration services. Today, we will describe ours.

Kate

6 min read

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DEVELOPMENTHow to Select an Outsourcer that Delivers Results

Outsourcing has become one of the fireproof saving boats in this heating lava of the IT hiring market. However, it’s not just a way to find additional professionals for your project. Companies often opt for outsourcing to reduce cost (70%), be more flexible (40%), make it faster to market (20%), etc. Whatever the reason for building such a partnership, it will be in vain if you choose an outsourcing vendor that is not up to the task.

Kate

5 min read

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TEAM BUILDINGA 7-step Guide to Effective Project Management

Do organizations and companies really need project managers to accomplish projects? Imagine: the leadership board passes the task to the development team and they get to work right away. And there is no particular person who monitors plans, schedules, deadlines… Thanks to the dedication and responsibility of developers, testers, and designers, everything works out. That would be great, right? The truth is, even if you put together a team of the best specialists with a deep sense of responsibility and accountability, your project will not succeed without project management. Why? Because a project is much more than just assigning and checking tasks. Teams face a range of communication issues, dependencies, deadlines that are missed, unclear task descriptions, as well as questions about goals. Ultimately, if they have to manage all of it themselves, they will not have time to code, test, or design. Let a professional project manager take care of it. Their task will be to optimize the work of your teams and boost their productivity, while also making sure that the project moves in the right direction.

Kate

10 min read

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WEBDEVELOPMENTOutsourcing Fintech Risks and How to Mitigate Them

There are both benefits and risks associated with outsourcing. Success in entrepreneurship comes from the ability to maximize benefits while minimizing risks, and it is true for outsourcing too. Outsourcing will, just like any partnership, require a risk management plan. This is the process of determining how the work will be done in case of unexpected events, how decisions will be made, and how disputes will be resolved. Having a solid plan in place will protect you from any risk that may emerge through your outsourcing partnership. Let’s get ready together!

Kate

5 min read

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WEBDEVELOPMENTFintech Outsourcing: How to do it Right

Due to the new norms that pandemics introduced into our lives, many things have changed on the financial landscape. With contactless payments, mobile banking, and real-time transactions, people are getting used to digital-only financial tools, which means they are open to other changes. Fintech companies have a better chance of attracting more users this way, meaning innovations can flourish. Outsourcing is a way to accelerate this process.

Kate

10 min read

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DEVELOPMENTWORDPRESS VS CUSTOM WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

Web development is always a compromise between functionality, development time, and cost. Thereby, choosing the right platform is about your priorities and capabilities. One of the most popular platforms used for web blogging services and websites of IT companies is WordPress: it is simple, which is a great advantage for inexperienced developers. So the question is what to choose in the rivalry of building a website from scratch vs WordPress website development?

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STARTUP25 PROS AND CONS OF USING PHP FOR WEB DEVELOPMENT

Web development is a very specific, yet demanded kind of work nowadays. The choice of the programming language is the very first step in the development of any project. It depends on such factors as budget, purpose, scale. Although, some programming languages are used fairly more often than others. Despite being old, PHP remains the most often used programming language for the back-end. About 80% of all websites including ones everyone uses on a daily basis are made with PHP. And this percentage isn’t going to reduce anytime soon.

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DEVELOPMENTBEST COUNTRIES TO OUTSOURCE YOUR PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Web development is at the peak of popularity and PHP remains the main tool for lots of web developers. Up to 80% of all the web software is developed with this programming language. PHP provides all the necessary tools and guarantees interoperability with different kinds of software as well as has many awesome frameworks such as Laravel or Symphony, which make development faster and easier. It is equally suitable for developing websites and mobile applications. However, even such smart web development is pretty expensive and one of the best solutions to cope with constantly growing budgets is outsourcing.

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DEVELOPMENTWHAT YOU NEED TO CONSIDER BEFORE BUILDING YOUR FINTECH PRODUCT

The FinTech industry is one of the most challenging for software development due to multiple regulations, requirements, and expectations. Your team should know the ropes to seamlessly integrate all the needed features and create a powerful project. SapientPro gathered its experience in this post to help you understand what to prepare for.

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DEVELOPMENTTHAT’S WHY YOU NEED A PWA FOR YOUR WEB-SITE

Have you ever tried to open any web-site on your phone’s browser? If you have, you’ve probably noticed how clumsy it can be. Yeah, opening and utilising a web-site on a PC with a big screen is pretty convenient, however doing the same on smartphones, especially older models with screens smaller than 4 inches is less satisfying. The text is really badly read and the buttons are small, ads may cover too much of your humble space.In order to cope with these and other issues at the dawn of the smartphone age PWA technology was developed.

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SAPIENTPROHow to update your marketplace app in 2021?

Creating a successful marketplace application may seem a Herculean task to cope with. However, its maintenance is not a simpler task either. Here we come across the helpful app upgrades. But why do you need to upgrade your application and what features a renewed app should have? Let’s dig deeper into these questions.

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SAPIENTPROHow to upgrade your old website for 2021?

Living in a hectic constantly changing world, you can hardly ever find something that remains the same. This statement relates not only to daily routine, but also to any job issues such as keeping your website updated. If your site doesn’t adjust to the latest trends and you haven’t done any rebranding or upgrades for ages, you risk to appear old-fashioned and stagnated. Here is some good news, too. You can always come to grips with reality and start to develop your own upgrading plan for a website. In order to speed up this overwhelming journey, we recommend you to stand still for now and scan carefully the information presented in this article.

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SAPIENTPROHow to build a successful development team? (Part 2)

You have already got acquainted with the aspects of first and foremost importance related to forming a successful development team. Let’s proceed with our journey and dwell upon the matter of adequate maintenance of the enhancement team on a certain level. Which characteristics and skills should remain firm with the flow of time for your web development process to be successful?

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SAPIENTPROHow to build a successful development team? (Part 1)

When you begin to work on a new (especially large-scale) project, organizational moments themselves look quite intimidating. Despite all the possible challenges, take a deep breath, count 1,2,3 and think carefully about the particular task the team is supposed to solve and what’s the team role within the project frames? Clear targeting and coming up with first juicy ideas will set you a decent start on the way to forming a successful development team.

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DEVELOPMENTChoosing Technology Stack for custom eCommerce Development: a guide for the non-tech entrepreneurs.

If only there were an analogy of Hogwarts’ sorting hat for software development… Imagine: you enter your idea of the product, how much budget you have, and get the list of the technology stack and contacts of the development team that would work ideally with your niche! In the real software development world, choosing a technology stack requires planning, discussions, and analysis. Some technologies will work better with your project, and our task is to detect which ones. However, you also need to understand that the tech stack is not something fixed. As your product grows, there comes the need for new and better tools. This way, software development requires flexibility. Thus, prepare that your initial technology stack may not stay with you forever. You may need to scale your project or implement new features and store more information. There may be better versions of some tools available. Prepare to be flexible. Prepare to change and alter things when the upgrades require it. That’s what will make you competitive from a technological standpoint of leading an E-Commerce business. In this article, we will tell you about the most popular technologies that power E-Commerce products. Next time you communicate with your development team, you will know all the essential information and, most importantly, you will ask the right questions.

Kate

8 min read

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SAPIENTPROCommunication in the software development workplace

IT office jungles are filled with computer forests, cable lianas, and rivers of coffee. The temperature varies between 24 and 27, depending on who keeps the conditioner remote control. The sunlight mainly comes from computer screens and lightbulbs. Developers are working like bees: they take the pollen of code and create honeycombs of apps. It is a beautiful environment filled with the magical power of innovation, creativity, and agility. However, this ecosystem only works if there is one more component. This component is communication.

Kate

6 min read

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DEVELOPMENT10 reasons to update your website

The day has come. Your once successful and well-performing website wears off. And you know what? It is okay. It happens to the best of us. Even while you are reading this article, we are revising our website to improve your experience with it. So let us explain how the updating process works, and not just because we are a software development company but because we understand. Right now, our designer is creating a fresh way of delivering cases, and our backend developer is engaged in the improvement of the admin panel.

Kate

7 min read

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DEVELOPMENTECOMMERCE REPLATFORMING GUIDE: SWITCH FROM ONE CMS TO ANOTHER

Outdated CMS may be among the reasons why your business hit a plateau.Developing and launching a website is not where the work stops. Besides, you have to maintain it constantly and implement profound changes. As for the latter, sometimes you may need to do something more than a simple redesign, and that may be a switch from one CMS to another. If your e-commerce business is continuously evolving and growing, it brings along more work to do. New technologies are always here to make your life easier. When it comes to CMS, there is also a great variety of opportunities you can use. In this article, we will walk you through the reasons, things to consider, and steps of CMS replatforming.

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DEVELOPMENTGUIDE TO BUILDING SEO FRIENDLY E-COMMERCE WEBSITE IN 2020

Let us be clear, the absence of SEO may result in the absence of website visibility.What people usually do when they need to find some information? Of course, they google it. The same goes for online shopping. When someone wants to buy or just compare prices for a certain product, Internet users simply open their devices to find necessary items online. Although you can now hardly find a person, who doesn’t have a computer or a laptop, people still use mobile devices more often. Thus, 93% of all internet activity starts with a search query. This number is for you if you doubt the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for your website.

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DEVELOPMENTHOW TO BUILD & IMPLEMENT DYNAMIC PRICING FOR E-COMMERCE

Bear in mind, the whole purpose of dynamic pricing isn’t all about making sales.Price is among the key priorities when the consumers make their final decision whether to buy a product or not. Too expensive or too cheap offers can easily avert the buyers from your store. What if other stores have smaller prices? Or similar products of cheaper brands attract visitors more? The solution for not losing the client base is keeping track and controlling the costs on your website with the help of dynamic price strategies.

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DEVELOPMENTCOSTS OF E-COMMERCE PROJECT REDESIGN

The rise of sales, increased traffic and positive reviews are just a couple of benefits you may get from a website redesign.If you want your e-commerce business to grow and develop (we believe you do), you need to keep track of events in the online retail industry and, of course, implement on-time updates. Sometimes, small changes are not enough, then significant renovations should take place. Those may include changing the offers you provide and product lines, updating the website and finally redesigning. The question of redesign should be taken up seriously, as the first impression is what most people rely on when it comes to the Internet and its tough competition. Be ready to invest enough effort and budget to the renovation that will increase your business’s value. To know how to determine your budget. It’s important to consider at first the features, reasons, and type of changes, necessary for your website in the process of redesign.

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DEVELOPMENTADDING AN ONLINE STORE TO YOUR WEBSITE: DETAILED GUIDE

Adding an online store to your website will cost you less than developing it from the ground up.Selling online is never a bad idea, especially nowadays, when people wish to buy everything they need right from their cozy homes.What if having a ready website a business owner decided to sell something? Good news! There is no need for you to start all over again. There is a solution – adding an online store to the existing website. The opportunities of eCommerce are growing as fast as the customers’ demands.

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DEVELOPMENTHOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BUILD AN E-COMMERCE WEBSITE IN 2019-2020

The e-commerce development company you choose will certainly affect the money you have to pay.The e-commerce website can definitely enhance the profit you receive from your business. But how much does e-commerce website cost? The figures you will hear in an answer to that question can vary a lot. Even after development, you will have to invest money into maintenance, improvement and adding brand-new features that are constantly appearing on the market. That’s in case you want your e-store to be attractive and profitable, of course. It’s even difficult to tell the average cost of how much should I charge for an e-commerce website. The numbers will vary due to different factors. In this article, we’re going to discuss them all in detail to help you grasp some idea about the money you need to pay for the e-store. First of all, you need to decide what you want your e-commerce to offer the customers. It may be anything from small business e-store up to a large website with a big amount of integrated (useful or just good-looking) features. It is also a good idea not to wait until everything becomes outdated. We strongly recommend to update all the features continuously and save money for more innovations.

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DEVELOPMENTGUIDE TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING FOR E-COMMERCE

To avoid the negative consequences, start with determining what you intend to achieve.The popularity of e-commerce is growing at a blistering pace. Many companies around the globe regard the internet as a powerhouse with high commercial capacity and opportunities to boost their business and attract more customers. Those companies are completely right – more and more people prefer clicking the mouse over walking for hours when they need to buy something. Online stores nowadays provide their customers with more possibilities for less effort. But how to make people buy on your website, not any other? The answer is in thorough planning and management of e-commerce.

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DEVELOPMENTWEB DEVELOPMENT TEAM STRUCTURE AT SAPIENTPRO

We don’t say there isn’t enough knowledge, because our specialists are always broadening their abilities, delivering first-rate products and making the customers satisfied.Being a client of a Web Development company doesn’t mean you have to know all the ins and outs of the development process. However, what may be interesting for you is the stages and main characters of the project delivery. You cannot address front-end developer directly if you need to add a new payment method. Even this, as you may think, simple task involves a well-thought teamwork. So, here is a brief insight into the mechanism of SapientPro Clockwork.

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DEVELOPMENTHOW IT OUTSOURCING MAKES UKRAINE ATTRACTIVE FOR BUSINESSES AROUND THE WORLD

If a customer wants to find a development company they can work comfortably with, the staff becomes a really important point to encounter for making a choice.Without any doubt, while visiting some websites, buying goods online or even using a digital map to reach your destination you don’t think of the fact that Ukrainian IT specialists might have taken part in the development of these apps. A great number of companies around the world choose to outsource web development to Ukraine and they do have strong reasons for that. So, let’s give a detailed look at the biggest of them:

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DEVELOPMENTMAIN FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE COST OF THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

As software development is a many-stage process, every its element contributes to what you have to pay for an application.Before starting something new, people usually ask: “How much will it cost me to do this?” If you expect to hear the exact sum once you come to the software development company, here is something you need to know. The factors to be considered for the cost estimation are numerous and most of them depend on how you want your website or app to look like.As software development is a many-stage process, every its element contributes to what you have to pay for an application. Let’s have a closer look at three most important factors that affect the client’s budget.

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