Most SaaS products don't fail because the buttons are in the wrong place. They fail because the underlying workflow — the permissions, the states, the edge cases, the way work actually moves between people — was never properly understood.
The interface is the easy part
Admin-heavy, multi-user, permission-based products have a lot going on beneath the surface: roles, approvals, integrations, data that changes hands. If you design the screens before you understand that, you get a tidy interface sitting on top of a broken model.
Start with the workflow
- Map how work actually flows between real people and systems
- Get the user types, permissions and states right first
- Find the edge cases and failure states early, not in QA
- Only then design the screens that support it
This is the difference between UI design and product design. The interface should be the visible result of getting the workflow right — not the starting point.
Design the workflow first. The screens are what's left once you understand it.← Back to all posts
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