liechman-marie
Something about business, startups and more!
When a person picks up a phone, he wants to solve a certain problem. Most of the tasks are solved by applications installed on his smartphone. But no matter how functional the application is, if it has a bad design, the user will lose interest. Mobile app design is a necessary and important part of a program that needs special attention.
What is mobile app design
In 2008, there was a real boom in the developer market - Apple released the iPhone and the App Store. Google in the same year releases the first smartphone on the Android operating system. There is such a thing as a mobile application. In addition to its functionality, users appreciate the look and feel. If in 2008 design played a secondary role, today it is a key one.
In 2017, mobile traffic surpassed computer traffic for the first time, and it only grows every year. Developers create a huge number of applications, and users choose them, including their appearance.
Application design is the visual design of the program, as well as the creation of a structure based on the logic of user behavior. In other words, it is not only the appearance, but also the usability.
Application design is divided into UX and UI. The UI designer creates the visual part of the application, while the UX designer creates the technical part. Our team implements modern technologies and follows trends. We pay attention to both the look and feel of the app to create an intuitive interface. So any user can easily understand the program.
How much does mobile app design cost
The price of creating a mobile app design varies greatly. It depends on the following factors:
1. the need for only UI design or UX design;
2. building application architecture;
3. creating a user interface;
4. development of corporate identity.
The design of a mobile application itself includes a fairly wide range of tasks. In addition to visual and technical design, the study of behavioral factors of users, analytics of competitors, the development of additional functionality, and so on.
To conclude, I will recommend you to read a couple of posts from this blog by Eleken or reach out to them if you want a mobile app designed for you.
SaaS business goes through three main development stages: Early, Growth, and Stability. When your company is at the Early Stage, you can be responsible for multiple processes alone or with your co-founder. But when you enter the most turbulent stage, which is Growth, your scope of work increases so you will need to hire people and build a strong team.
The majority of these people are going to be your in-house employees, but you might also collaborate with remote teams like our clients do when they hire designers from Eleken to help them with the product design.
6 main roles for your SaaS business
Customer Success Manager - the person who will retain clients, deliver product value, improve the onboarding process, and build long-lasting relationships with customers.
Marketing Manager - the person who will be responsible for creating various marketing campaigns across social media, email, affiliates, advertising, and content marketing channels.
Chief Technical Officer - the person who will be responsible for software development and infrastructure, data centers, and security debugging, and new releases.
Product designer - the person who will work on wireframes and prototypes, build customer journeys, and work on improving the user experience based on user feedback and insights from analytics.
So, your SaaS company needs a good hiring strategy. SaaS business requires a team of responsible individuals who will innovate, create, support, and maintain growth.
If you want to read some more about this topic, check out this blog post here: https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/roles-in-saas-company-who-you-need-to-start-hiring-when-your-saas-is-growing.
"Design an iOS app that users will like. Design an Android app that makes people love the Google Play Store."
First of all, smartphone users expect products to be extremely easy to use and eye-catching at the same time. In the mobile app design, you need to combine modern design aesthetics with familiar platform conventions.
If your product lives on many platforms, you need to make sure a user doesn’t feel any difference moving from one device to another.
Become the advocate of design minimalism. It's not the number of features that you should be concerned with, it's their value. Remove unnecessary clutter in favor of meaningful content, nifty micro-interactions, readable fonts, smooth workflows, and flexible layouts.
In the mobile app design, you need to follow iOS and Android platform conventions. But having a distinctive brand is also important for your business. The apps you design have familiar UI but include patterns that reflect your brand and are specific to your product.
Mobile app design is a crucial part of your business success. You have to keep in mind that mobile app design works when the team behind it understands your users and your product strategy. If you don't have a lot of experince in the field of coding, design and media marketing, the best decision would be to ask a good and trustworthy design agency for help. If you want an example, I can recommend this design agency called Eleken. They are product designers with strong expertise in SaaS application design. They integrate with your in-house team and help you create a product from start to finish.
In conclusion, I can say that most companies nowadays prefer to hire mobile app developers in order to remain viable in today’s modern market. Doing so, or developing your app by yourself is completely up to you, these were just some tips you can take into consideration.
With more than 15,529 SaaS companies registered on Crunchbase and 12 times growth rate since 2010, it's okay to say that SaaS is a business model of the 21st century. So, let's discover, why does everyone want to be a SaaS company?
What is SaaS?
SaaS (Software as a Service) is software hosted on the cloud. It can be accessed via an internet browser, mobile application, or desktop app. SaaS is provided to users on a subscription basis, which means they have to pay a recurring fee monthly or annually.
SaaS revenue streams
SaaS companies typically have a few revenue streams in addition to subscription. Let's look at all of them.
Subscription
Recurring payments are the main revenue-generating stream of SaaS businesses. This stream is fluctuating and varies from month to month (depending on your pricing model and customer satisfaction). People continue to use the app as long as it delivers value.
Upsell
You can upsell to existing customers offering them more storage, more data, additional features, or more accounts.
Software setup
You may charge for software setup. This revenue stream not only adds to the profit of your SaaS but also enables a customer validation process. You need to approach setup fees carefully. It works better for enterprises (big clients) with a lot of data.
Customer support
You can develop different levels of customer support and charge for this service. Customer service is an important and expensive part of any business. And, we consider it to be part of the SaaS value proposition so it might also be included in the pricing model.
If you want to read some more about key metrics of SaaS businesses, you can check out this blog post here: https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/saas-business-model-learn-how-it-works-and-how-to-measure-if-it-does.
Will every business evolve into a subscription business model?
In conclusion, software as a Service business model is a win/win for customers and businesses. For businesses, SaaS scales fast, generates recurring revenue, and gets managed easily. For customers, it offers convenience and reduced investments.
Customer demand is changing. They are more willing to pay for access to the product or service in smaller amounts rather than paying lump sums up-front. Customers enjoy not only lower costs but also constant upgrades of the software and easy access to new features and cutting-edge technologies.
There is a luring opportunity for every business to evolve into a subscription business model. If you want to keep your product viable and generate constant profit, regardless of where you are, you should start considering this option.
The transition may be expensive at first, but you can reap benefits very fast as soon as you choose the right pricing model and set up your metrics.
We all probably know that the main goal of social media advertising is to attract attention to your product with visually engaging and clickable paid ads for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks.
Today, we are going to talk about ads on the most popular platform - Facebook. This post will be quite brief, but if you want more examples or inspiration, or even if you need someone to design your ads banners, you can visit Eleken's webpage about social media ads.
There are 7 most common types of ads on Facebook:
Photo ads - the most common type of ads on Facebook. These ads work well for showcasing new products or services.
Carousel ads - an ad that consists of up to 10 images or videos – a good way to showcase product features or explain a step-by-step process.
Collection ads - mobile-only ads that consist of a cover photo or video and a few product images with pricing and other details.
Collection ads - full-screen ads with photos and videos that only last for 24 hours. It's a great format for limited time offers and moment marketing.
Slideshow ads - a video made from several static images. A great option for experimenting with a video format without investing in making videos.
Instant Experience ads - full-screen interactive ads for mobile. They include up to 20 images or up to 2 minutes of video and work together with collection ads.
Video ads - videos can last for up to 240-minutes on desktop. They have higher conversion rates compared to other types of Facebook ads.
SaaS founders find it challenging to choose the most appropriate pricing model. It's not only because balancing value and revenue is hard, but also because pricing is part of the product. It influences everything: from your target audience to your budget projections.
Who is your target audience? Do they see the benefits versus price the same way you do? Your pricing model will influence your marketing strategy. It will also affect your customer journey map. You will need to think when it's time to offer your users an upgrade and when it's a good time to upsell. Here is the list of 7 types of SaaS pricing models, if you want to read more about examples, or gains and loses of every strategy, go here: https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/saas-pricing-models-to-help-you-make-an-informed-decision.
7 Types of SaaS Pricing Models
One of the most common models to price a SaaS product is Freemium. You let your customers use your software for free offering them a basic set of features. In other words, you let your users see what your service is capable of without making them pay for it.
It is a simple pricing model. You have one price for one product with the same features offered to all of your customers. The only choice you give is to charge monthly or annually to use your SaaS product.
Usage-based Pricing Model is pretty clear and fair for your customers. They pay only for the volume they use. An alternative name is “pay as you go”. It is like a regular utility bill with a counter but for SaaS companies. You can charge for the number of transactions, requests, data used, scheduled posts, issued invoices, calls, messages. It works well with Tiered and Freemium pricing models.
One type of “pay as you go” pricing strategy is based on the number of users actively or passively operating your SaaS platform. There are two types of this pricing model: user-based and active-user based.
If you offer a wide range of features, then your best option would be to stick to the Feature-based pricing model. You can combine this model with Tiered pricing and create multiple plans with a set of features for different customers.
Tiered Pricing model combines all the possible features of your SaaS in predefined packages and allows your customer to choose what better suits his or her needs. You create from two to five plans at a specific price with a set of functions for each.
The better you know your product the optimal pricing model you will be able to choose. For some market players, it is difficult to fit all functionality into one pricing model. Therefore, they mix a few models to sell their products to different people. With a blended pricing model, gains are pretty clear, but losses are great as well.
In the previous article, we discussed social media ads on Facebook. Today, it is Instagram's turn.
With a crowd of in excess of 928 million individuals, Instagram promotions are a critical device for any web-based media advertiser. With access to parent organization Facebook's broad focus on choices and instruments, Instagram promoting is a viable methodology that’s easy to implement.
This post will be quite brief, but if you want more examples or inspiration, or even if you need someone to design your ad banners, you can visit Eleken's webpage about social media ads.
There are 5 most common types of ads on Instagram:
1. Photo and video ads - ads that look like regular Instagram posts with a label 'Sponsored' in the top right and a CTA button.
2. Carousel ads - ads in the Instagram newsfeed that consist of different visually similar images tied together by a common theme.
3. Collection ads - they include a cover image or video plus several product shots. Collection ads direct the users to an Instant Experience.
4. Instagram Stories ads - these ads can use photos or videos up to 120 seconds long. They display in full-screen format between people’s stories.
5. IGTV ads - Instagram recently announced that it will be offering advertising on IGTV. As this is a brand-new development, details of how IGTV ads will work are now yet clear, but video creators will receive 55% of the ad revenue.
To conclude, the goal of any social media campaign is to reach the target audience. But having an ad appear in the news feeds of people you're targeting won't necessarily bring you desired business results.
The popular perception of software as a service and cloud computing is very simple. Sign up, log in and start working. This, of course, is not that precise in reality. It all depends on the application, business needs and goals. How to save time thanks to SaaS?
This does not mean that SaaS users need to sit for weeks to debate. With proper planning, it is possible to deliver value to the business in a shorter amount of time. On the second week of deployment, you can give customers the opportunity to start using the product. This can be by delivering a high-level dashboard so that users begin to understand the new data views they can take advantage of. This way, the customer can begin to integrate the technology into their daily workflows while your team completes the implementation.
Simplify the scope of the first phase
Incorporating a new SaaS solution is an exciting experience for a customer who wants to improve workflows and processes. Particularly, this occurs when the customer has been using outdated and difficult to use technology for a long time. But when the decision-maker discovers how much time those new requirements extend and the cost of implementation, the deal can be closed.
To avoid this scenario, you should reduce the scope for the first phase. It is something that can be accomplished in a few weeks and that allows the customer to start using the platform early in the onboarding exercise.
Define supplier-customer roles
Vendor implementation teams don't work wonders. They have all the knowledge about the product and how to implement it successfully, but they are not experts in the customer environment. Setting expectations for customer work, such as helping with third-party software integrations, is critical. Define processes to work together through the project. Salespeople and consultants must be clear about the roles.
Coordination of business stakeholders
Even when the software is serving technical users like IT security teams, there is a business story that must be told and incorporated every step of the way. It is up to the customer to identify and attract business stakeholders to planning meetings with suppliers. This can take a long time. Often times, we only need an hour of your time, but executives can still delay a meeting request.
However, the vendor and customer can work hard to communicate the benefits to stakeholders for attending a meeting.
User training
A direct line can be drawn between satisfaction and customers who really know how to use the system.
Often users who are not happy with the software do not understand how to use it. Your company should put a huge emphasis on training. This can be achieved in a number of ways. Create YouTube videos, invite users to follow the implementation, and conduct live training for the business. It's also important to share your recordings so that people can watch them when they can.
In conclusion, if you want to read some more about managing your SaaS company, check out this blog post here: https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/roles-in-saas-company-who-you-need-to-start-hiring-when-your-saas-is-growing
We have already discussed how to design a good mobile app and why it is important. However, in this post, we are going to talk about the most common mistakes developers make.
The most common mistakes jump from failing to maintain consistency throughout the lifespan of an app to difficulty attracting users in the first place. It’s quite tricky to design an app with simplicity without it becoming repetitive and boring. An app has to offer pleasing design and UX details without losing sight of a greater purpose. If you want examples of perfect mobile app design or inspiration, or even if you need someone to design your app, you can visit Eleken's webpage.
Bad First Impression
Regularly, the principal use or first day with an application is the most basic time frame to snare an expected client. The initial introduction is basic to such an extent that it very well may be an umbrella point for the entirety of the other portable plan best practices. In the event that anything turns out badly or seems confounding or exhausting, potential clients are rapidly impartial.
App that has no purpose
Avoid entering the design process without clear intentions. Apps are too often designed and developed in order to follow trends rather than to solve a problem, fill a niche, or offer a distinct service.
For the designer and their team, the app’s purpose will affect every step of a project. It guides every decision, from the branding or marketing of an app to the wireframe format to the button aesthetic. If the purpose is clear, each piece of the app will communicate and function as a coherent whole.
Failing to Optimize User Flow
Designers should be careful not to skip over thoughtful planning of an app’s UX architecture before jumping into design work. Even before getting to a wireframing stage, the user flow and structure of an app should be mapped out. Designers are often too excited to produce aesthetics and details. This results in a culture of designers who generally under-appreciate UX and the necessary logic or navigation within an app.
Abusing Notifications
Push notifications are a finicky part of app design best practices. Too many, and users will turn them off entirely, risking the app being forgotten about. Too few, and the same fate occurs.
However, it's not simply the recurrence of notifications that can turn clients on or off. It's likewise the content. Valuable notices, for example, those advising clients of another message or reminding them to make a day by day registration, are viewed as accommodating and essential.
To sum up, your goal is to make sure your product can acquire new users and retain them. Pay great attention to user onboarding, push notifications, and habit forming UX design, because those are the most crucial parts of a successful mobile app.
The availability of malware as well as ransomware in SaaS model in the form of kits makes it easier for cybercriminals to access these threats. As a result, aspiring or skilled hackers no longer need to have sophisticated skills to enter the world of cybercrime.
Let's start with the definition of SaaS. SaaS (Software as a Service) is software hosted on the cloud. It can be accessed via an internet browser, mobile application, or desktop app. If you are not familiar with the way SaaS business model works, you can read this article by Eleken to understand the topic which we are going to be discussing today a little bit better.
The fault of cheap tools
The industrialization of processes and the availability of inexpensive tools have allowed unskilled people, even anyone (!), toenter the realm of cybercrime. These tools offered in kits are able not only to crack passwords, but also to know where and what service the hacked organization is running. Hackers can also carry out DDoS attacks, which is cheaper.
Hackers use all means possible to attack companies where their security systems are most vulnerable. They also adapt their devices to their targets, in this case industries. As a result, anyone is able to take advantage of compromised systems, unmodified administrative accounts, escalation of privilege, or SQL injection attacks. These hacks take place because companies struggle to implement basic controls.
Not to mention that more sophisticated hackers use a 'scalpel' type attack. They are often sponsored by big organizations, and use advanced technology.
Several types of attacks threaten businesses
With the expansion of SaaS kits, industries are threatened by several types of cybercrime attacks. However, the protection measures taken by companies have changed a little, which is currently a huge challenge for them, given the impacts that could ensue.
The use of SaaS tools also helps automate attacks. An interface that infects websites with the push of a button highlights the vulnerability of corporate control systems. At the same time, this action allows malware to spread quickly and widely, and hackers can exploit it again without any technical knowledge.
As the execution of these attacks no longer requires special technical skills, those who want to profit from them could be people with no more technical background but criminal. If former criminals convert to cybercrime, what will be the impact on corporate security?
Since hackers gained easy access to resources, the number of cyber attacks has increased dramatically. Plus, defensively, these attacks claim more data, more alerts and more things CIOs and CISOs need to analyze before deciding what to act on.
Note that most cybercriminals sell on the 'dark web' access to computers that they can hack, at a very low price, between $5 to $20.
Preventive solutions
This is the reason why companies must focus on deploying preventive solutions, in parallel, some would say instead of traditional security tools, to develop means of detection. It is as useful as it is necessary to put in place the right systems and policies in order to prevent attacks from hackers.
Indeed, the growth of SaaS is not about to stop there. For another 1 to 2 years or more, these services will only increase. In the face of this, organizations are forced to find strategies that can prevent hacks.
One solution would be in the creation and development of a security industry with the common interest of sharing intelligence. Artificial intelligence is also one of the alternatives available to organizations. A machine never sleeps! Humans can't handle everything, so you might as well share tasks with AI, just like hackers did. All the same, this requires some collaboration between organizations in relation to the sharing of emerging technologies, in terms of security, and among other things, antivirus updates.
