Pitfalls of SaaS Redesign: How to Avoid Common Mistakes
In the human brain, there is a special small area called the amygdala, which is responsible for resistance to redesign. It reacts to unexpected changes as danger and releases stress hormones into the body. Therefore, if your redesign doesn't make your Facebook feed chronological by default or introduce something that makes people say "Perfect," they won't like it.
Mistake #1: Focusing on Competitors
The technology market can be quite intimidating: all these startups popping up like mushrooms after rain and quickly becoming "unicorns." In 2022, there were nearly 900 startups worldwide, with a total value exceeding 350 trillion rubles. So even if you have a strong and steadily growing SaaS product, competition can still feel a bit unsettling.
But that doesn't mean you should turn your product into Frankenstein by adding as many competitor features as possible. That's exactly what happened to Skype in 2017 when Microsoft decided to make the app more "competitive" and appealing to audiences.
As a result of the redesign, Skype became more colorful, Stories were added, making the app more similar to Snapchat. Among other new features were bots and add-ons clearly inspired by Facebook Messenger.
Did the audience like it? Not quite. A year later, Microsoft had to roll back the redesign, abandoning most of the updates. It turned out that people valued good old Skype for free chat, phone and video calls, and didn't really need the new features.
What can we learn from this? Focusing too much on competitors and implementing unnecessary features instead of improving what could be better is not the best strategy. So even if you find a feature that everyone loves in Snapchat, Instagram, etc., it doesn't mean your audience will be able to use it in your app.
Mistake #2: Lack of Communication During Redesign
Remember how we said people don't like change? Well, you can soften the audience's reaction by:
- familiarizing end users with new features before implementation;
- explaining why you decided to implement them;
- describing how these features will improve the user experience.
On the other hand, lack of communication can lead to misunderstanding, user frustration, and consequently, decreased engagement. One of the most striking examples of this is Twitter and its infamous design updates.
Instead of introducing the long-awaited edit button, Twitter decided to surprise users with a new font, a high-contrast color scheme, and new button colors. The high contrast was probably the worst idea, as it is very harmful to users, especially those suffering from chronic migraines. This is a vivid example of what can happen when you don't talk to end users and think you know better what they want.
Mistake #3: Lack of Scalability Planning
It's hard to predict whether your SaaS product will be successful when you launch it. Nevertheless, you need to plan for success so you know what to add to the MVP when the project starts growing.
If you don't plan for scalability from the start, you may face difficulties adding new features, optimizing user flows, and improving the user interface, especially if there's no budget for it in the near future. For example, Instagram was not prepared for such rapid growth, crossing the 100,000 user mark just six days after launch. This led to performance issues that could have potentially been avoided.
Mistake #4: Redesign Not Aligned with Available Resources
Sometimes it's just impossible to resist the temptation to make a solution more modern and add a few "bells and whistles" during the redesign to make it look more impressive. After all, developers will be able to implement it anyway, right?
Not quite. More often than not, developers have to write custom code to implement certain design decisions. Depending on the decisions, this can be fairly simple and affordable in some cases, or complex and expensive in others.
While this is not a problem for companies with sufficient financial and technical resources, it can become an unbearable burden for startups and small companies that don't have such large budgets and teams.
Mistake #5: Lack of Testing with End Users
What's the easiest way to find out if people like your redesign? Ask them to try it. Testing not only helps identify issues and bugs before the improved version is released, but also helps understand whether it will be user-friendly.
Don't Forget Who You're Redesigning For
Despite the fact that people are biologically wired to resist change, there are ways to overcome this phenomenon. All the mistakes described above lead to one clear conclusion: if you are doing a redesign without talking to end users, you shouldn't be doing it. So find out what irritates your audience about the current version of the product. What works but isn't good enough? Do they need those brand new features you plan to implement, or not?
Eliminating user frustrations and pain points will help you overcome the initial resistance to redesign. After all, although people don't like change, they also love having their problems solved.