I think the right step would be to somehow communicate to the vendor that this feature is needed (eliminating the PM backlog BS) and their coding Agents should pick it and build it. The real moat they have is SaaS vendors have everyone believe that trivial feature requests take time to implement.

▲

raw_anon_1111 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There is an entire industry of Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow consultants and almost any other major SaaS app that you can hire to customize the app based on public APIs. I can’t imagine choosing any mission critical SaaS app without publicly documented APIs

▲

treyd 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That introduces a level of indirection between "what I want" and what gets built. A workflow like the OP just has less friction. SaaS platforms would want to provide more stable accessible APIs if it becomes a popular model, because users would find it more usable.

	▲	shardullavekar 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		these embeddable UI could be a direct ask on how users want a workflow, the SaaS vendors can distribute the embeddable UI and see if it clicks with a lot of users. Would push them to create a stable API

▲

x0x0 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> have everyone believe that trivial feature requests take time to implement.

This could not be more wrong. Features do, because telling a user they can do X comes with a standing promise that it works, the results are correct, the ui is accessible, the feature cleanly interacts with all other features in the system (both now and in the future), corner cases are worked out, etc. And that burden is where prod+eng spend time.

▲

drewbeck 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The real moat they have is SaaS vendors have everyone believe that trivial feature requests take time to implement.

So true. People are going to be sooo mad when they find out we all have these Build Features For Free buttons and just don't press them.

▲

apsurd 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Surprised this is your take coming from a UX designer. You think a straight path for every user to add their feature ideas results in a good UX?

edit: reading further into this, the idea is perhaps that users vibe-code their own distinct UX with everything valuable to them. That's not a bad take, but even in that world, I wouldn't think UX and product disciplines become exposed for having no value at all.

▲

drewbeck 6 hours ago | parent [-]

My take in this (ironic) comment was just "no feature is free", which I don't think should be odd coming from a UX designer!

> the idea is perhaps that users vibe-code their own distinct UX with everything valuable to them

I do find this interesting. I work on a complex business operations and reporting platform and every facility has their own lil quirks. More control in their hands would let them smooth out their workflows while still relying on the foundational work our platform does.

	▲	apsurd 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ah, I didn't register the sarcasm. Typical HN, it's probably why you're downvoted. Yes, today's HN session has me nerd-sniped about what the future of product development looks like. I've been thinking how mock-to-prototype is just too slow when engineers can ship so much so fast. Eng needs design direction especially when it's too easy to "solve design" with tailwind components and "You're a designer from a top saas company" prompts. But what if the new UX is less visual-first and more IA, primitives and well structured object models... now that has me thinking.

▲

hluska 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Doesn’t sound like you have much experience in software businesses.