Seduce your Customer: Designing an addictive SaaS interface

April 13th, 2007 by Mitch Brisebois

Way back at CaseCamp, I talked about eight ways to better design your SaaS (Software as a Service) UI so that your viral marketing efforts are more effective. By being more effective, I mean getting more people trying your service. But how do you keep those users coming back? Sure, provide the basics: reliable, secure, low-cost service. But those are attributes that prevent people from leaving, not coming back for more. Building that passion from users demands thoughtful design and innovation.

One surefire method of creating customer loyalty is to provide them with simple tools to view their data in real time. These can be dashboards or widgets. For these tools to become addictive, they have to be simple, enticing and engaging. If a person can monitor something “at a glance”, they’ll likely monitor more often – especially if the data shown reflects their current reality. For more detailed vews, offer drill-downs or other means – but the top level should be super simple. Also, offer simple methods by which a user can set threshold alarms or basic key performance indicators. Simple ways of personalization encourage the user to develop a sense of ownership of the tool. Once it becomes “theirs”, it’s harder to let go. Offer “tear-away” widgets, so that the user can monitor your service without have the full window open.

Take this a step further… what if the monitoring widget could be displayed on a peripheral device? Blackberry? Smartphone? or even a wireless digital watch??

Successful products: good software, great psychology!

[tags]widgets, dashboards, psychology[/tags]