Building SaaS - Super Confused

Why Read This from an HCI Perspective

This article highlights a problem where, beyond the AI features themselves, users in complex professional work contexts don’t actually understand how to use the product. From an HCI/UX perspective, whether an MVP works and whether users can adopt it self-sufficiently are entirely different challenges. It’s meaningful for both practitioners and researchers to see why onboarding, task flows, and first-time user experience (FTUE) design are critical in an early product.

CIT's Commentary

From a CIT perspective, this case is a classic niche B2B problem where the key issues are learnability of the business workflow and self-service usability—more important than the technical narrative of being ‘AI enabled.’ Users with strong domain knowledge, like investment bankers, may feel an immediate cognitive burden if there isn’t enough explanation, even when there are many features. Therefore, it’s not just a matter of adding a UX Designer; you need to use UXR (UX Research) to first map the user’s goals, terminology, and decision points, and then redesign onboarding and the golden path based on those findings. Tools like Claude can help with ideation, but validating context ultimately still requires user research and iterative testing.

Questions to Consider While Reading

• Q.What is the single most important core task users must accomplish first in this product, and can they succeed within the first five minutes?
• Q.How are you distinguishing whether the source of the confusion is a lack of features, problems with terminology and information structure, or the absence of onboarding?
• Q.Based on the workflow of your ICP—investment bankers—which patterns from competing products should you borrow, and which parts must be redesigned from scratch?