The number of articles that have been hitting Medium and other Design related blogs and portals on the topic of Low Code and No Code platforms has been steadily increasing. And for the most part they’re interesting reflections on what these platforms enable teams and individuals to create. However, the more I’ve been reading these articles the more I notice how substantial the discrepancy actually is between articles that enumerate the benefits and disadvantages of using these software solutions, and what I actually experienced when I recently had to work on multiple product solutions and had to implement them on Low Code/No Code platforms. Here’s some key-takeaways for Designers, Product and Development teams to consider, if they indeed want to pursue this venue to deliver their product solutions.

Understand the Platform — There’s plenty of resources on this topic online, ranging from self promoting articles from IBM to the more standard (and succinct) fare on Wikipedia. Succinctly, these platforms allow teams to create software applications through a graphical interface. Their premise, which I’m going to very broadly describe, is associated with the fact that they reduce the amount of time in development and accelerate the go to market journey. While all these variables and aspects of the go to market journey are fundamental and of the utmost importance, they also have a fundamental flaw at its core. Nowhere in these definitions does the Product Design journey come into play, and how Product Solutions and Product Experiences are crafted through a series of steps which demand a profound understanding of Users, combined with a series of recognizable, documented and applicable behavior and interactive patterns, frequent testing and iterations, in summary, the systematic application of a Human Centered Design methodology. Many of you may say that these platforms are flexible and customizable enough to contemplate the Product Design requirements that are established during the incubation/inception phases. And in theory that does indeed occur and that virtuosity with these platforms does indeed exist. However, and this is a considerable however, that’s where the timeline of customizing experiences comes into play, alongside with its cost. Keep in mind, that at the core of these low code/no code solutions lies the capability to get to market in a cost and time efficient manner. However as Designers and their co-pilots on the Product Design journey uncover flows, and craft product experiences informed by Clients and Users expectations, more often than not, what these platforms deliver by default requires a substantial amount of customization, something that goes far beyond what their out-of-box concept and various taglines advocates and promotes. Constraints is a principle of Interaction Design, and something Product Design teams are well aware of, however in my personal experience with Low Code/No Code platforms, the constraints we had to contend with were herculean, and had a profound impact on the Product experience itself. Again, anyone can always say with enough budget and time, anything can be done, but if that is indeed the case, doesn’t that defeat the original purpose of using these solutions to begin with. I shall summarize this part of the article with a recommendation to all the teams who are considering going through this possible journey of adopting a Low Code/No Code based solution: make sure you understand what the possibilities of these platforms actually are, inside out. Also remember to have on your team, people who are experts or are at least familiar enough with these platforms, professionals who can provide a sense for the time and cost it’s going to be involved in customizing aspects of the platform itself. Because that will be needed, and that’s where the friction will start to occur.

Principles of Design and Interactive Design — I’ve written a variety of articles on topics affiliated with the principles of Design as defined by Professor Dieter Rams, however and adding to those same principles, there’s considerably more including for instance principles of Interactive Design, which are just as important particularly when considering the experiences crafted in Low Code/No Code environments. What these principles invariably surface, is the need to create solutions that align with the expectations of users, but also that manage to simultaneously delight, entice and create long lasting relationships with them.

Typically as Product Design teams go through the process of crafting solutions, they do so with a clear understanding of a series of constraints, which can include macro-economic constraints, compliance, legalities, industry specific constraints, technical, but also limitations which stem from what the users themselves are clearly stating. Typically as Product Design teams embark on Research endeavors, documenting what they observe from interviews, from testing, surveys, analytics, and from a variety of additional qualitative and quantitative methods, the goal is always to best understand those who are going to use the tools that are being produced. While Low Code/No Code platforms do provide opportunities to automate many processes, they simultaneously pose the question if the products that are built within their own ecosystem and with their own limitations, do they actually serve the purpose of what the users are asking for or not. From my personal experience, and based on the extensive testing that I was involved with in Low Code/No Code solutions, which also included some customization of the platform that was used, many of their Mental Models, Consistency, Discoverability and Mappings, was severely lacking from a user perspective. We documented higher interaction costs coupled with memory strains, and the overall user experience was not improved. While anyone can state that Product Design teams should and correctly so, focus on fixing these documented issues, we have to also keep in mind that these platforms have at their core and as their selling points characteristics such as reduced development time coupled with reduced costs, which are also tied with their goals to efficiently (and rapidly) get products to market. Suffice to say, these premises aren’t straightforward, and much like a relationship in dire need of therapy or counseling, the cohabitation of sound principles of Design and these platforms are still in dire need of some relationship bonding.

While the principles which govern these platforms are indeed sound and strong, one must always remember the applications they enable to come to life, have to actually be used by users/clients, who come to these experience ecosystems with their own set of expectations, biases and behaviors. The more flexible and customizable these platforms are, the more customer centric they will become. The rigidity of monolithic platforms won’t work, particularly for users who have come to expect products that adjust to their routines, including their tasks, habits, knowledge base and goal accomplishment.

As Bill Gates stated:
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”.