Low-code application design

Designing with low-code application platforms

Published in

Enterprise UX

5 min readDec 18, 2020

This article is part of a three-chapter Enterprise Design guidelines.
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LCAP segment [1] is one of the most exciting enterprise software movements that is often overlooked by the design community. There is a fair amount of skepticism shared across the design and development domains. Designers often render low-code app builders a limiting constraint to their creativity and ability to precisely address user needs using the people-first-technology-second approach. Developers see the imperfection of the software architecture and lack of freedom to extend their solutions beyond the immediately available scope.

Human centered

Beyond the usual pitch of saving enterprises time and money is a powerful idea: Low code can be an equalizing force because it relies more on motivated creativity than on institutionalized advantages. [2]

In our product design and development bubble, we tend to spend a lot of energy clarifying our own roles and ways of working. We are so busy with Agile and Scrum frameworks and a war of tools. At the same time, don’t invest enough in domain-specific professional development [3].

Experts such as service professionals or administrative workers are not part of the build process. But domain professionals are often in the best position to bring innovation to their own field [4]. We are attempting to extract the knowledge from subject matter experts or rely on their immediate ideas. Instead, bringing SMEs to the product build side opens a massive potential for more innovation in enterprise IT.

Many organizations have a priority to digitize their processes. Now Platform provides a single mobile and web app development environment, allowing people with limited to no coding experience to quickly build business apps that power the digital transformation.[5]

Screen-based design

As solutions such as ServiceNow UI Builder [6] are maturing enough to provide versatility to build highly customized apps, low-code tools are uncovering a potential to redefine the design process. Our methods and tools must change to adapt to the new era. It makes little to no sense to democratize development tools down to the level of drag & drop low-code builders while relying on pixel-perfect screen-prototypes as the main method to render the design intent and validate any assumption. Sketch, InVision, or even Figma design handoff workflows are relying on developers inspecting UI properties using eyedropper CSS tools, assuming every single UI elements is build from scratch. It is now faster to build a real enterprise app than draw a picture of it.

Experimenting and prototyping directly in a low-code tool open the massive potential for iterative improvements and usability testing of workflows that are not linear. Consider prototyping a simple request form or list. Validating this basic use case using a screen-based prototype is not remotely close to the actual experience. It is almost impossible to experiment with different conditions that are triggered after the user submits the form.

ServiceNow UI Builder, part of App Engine Studio.

Design systems

Arguing about Design Systems become my personal metaphor for arguing about Agile [7]. This is the debate you can’t win unless there is a clear level set about the term definition. In the world of enterprise legacy, a typical mental model for a design system is still close to branding, visual identity, or ultimate consistency. This is almost impossible goal in app ecosystem consisting of best-of-the-breed integrations and dozens of different javascript and backend frameworks.

I refrain from offering my own definition of a design system and rather focus on the fundamental change of the design systems perception related to low-code tools. As you are building your app from pre-made blocks, everything must look the same, right? This often captures stakeholders’ attention, moving the focus from difficult workflow problems to UI tweaking and visual identity beyond accessibility or usability improvements. But there is potential for true in-depth design work and storytelling — what are your brand’s key elements? Is it the product logo, colors, the typography, or the ultimate consistency for all icons across the enterprise?[8]

Most of the low-code platforms offer customization and theming capabilities. Pushing these capabilities to their limits can satisfy your stakeholders while still using low-code benefits. Designing a custom theme as an extension of the brand identity system provides an alternative approach, but it is impossible to design this system as isolated use case or screen-by-screen.

Conclusions

I started my journey with a skeptical view of low-code tools. Over time, I learned that the job market supply and demand limit our ability to attract designers and developers in the world of enterprise software. Democratizing the build side of the design and development process is opening it to other professionals. This can shift the whole company culture from all-talk-no-action to creating, making, and crafting real things.

ServiceNow no-code expense approval workflow.

Designers and developers need to adapt their toolset. It is an exciting opportunity to focus on system-level challenges and become trusted partners. System designers and developers are focused on building blocks that others can use create new workflows. I bet at Lego company, everyone is excited to see creations made beyond the default kits, and thoughtfully take this as an input for new development [9].

We need to start exploring the possibilities and limitations of LCAP and adapt our methods to focus on interaction design beyond screen-based prototypes. The opportunity goes beyond enterprise software. Portals like Markedpad have already established hubs for low-code resources and can bridge the gap between consumer and enterprise user experience quality [10].