Alette Holmberg-Nielsen  |  04/03/2021

5 ways that no-code tools can help your organization

No-code solutions like Airtable, Appcues, and Typeform are rapidly growing. These tools represent the dream that you don’t have to be an engineer to build something.

Companies are working hard across verticals like reporting, operations, and product development to come up with solutions that empower organizations to build and create without relying on engineers.

 

The rise of no-code solutions has been announced as one of 2021’s most disruptive trends by Forbes, citing that in 3-5 years, as much as 65% of development will be done in-house using no-code or low-code (Gartner).

 

While I don’t believe a drag and drop UI can ever replace the thinking of a team of highly skilled engineers when it comes to building a solid product, there are ways in which no-code tools can make a difference for your business — including your engineering team. Before discussing the ways that no-code tools make a difference, let’s get some definitions out of the way.

 

What is a no-code tool?

A no-code tool is any software that can be used without writing code. Instead of relying on users knowing how to build an application from scratch, no-code tools provide users with a visual interface where they can drag and drop elements.

 

You’re probably already using plenty of no-code tools without even thinking about it. Nowadays it’s expected that you can create a web form or build a chat support workflow without knowing any programming languages.

 

A website builder is a perfect example of a no-code tool that has a multitude of uses for not only enterprise companies but also small businesses. Let’s break down how website builders can make our lives easier:

 

1. Rapid prototyping and testing

Product prototyping and testing can be done in a myriad of ways, ranging from a conversation to paper drawings to a functional software product. Generally, you want to test your idea before investing heavily in the creation of a product because you don’t know whether it will work. 

 

A website builder can help you create a prototype with a fairly mature user interface and is easy to send around for asynchronous or virtual testing — meaning you can send a link to the participants because doing face-to-face user testing isn’t possible these days. 

 

2. Empowering your marketing team

Thanks to no-code website builders, having to ask engineers to build landing pages for your marketing team is a distant memory. When selecting your no-code solution, you should probably still get an engineer and designer to vet the output of the tool — you want to make sure that a great design is easily achievable, and that templates are available. 

 

With modern no-code website builders, your marketing team can go crazy with the campaign-building, tracking and testing without any dependency on the rest of the organization.

 

3. Updating your corporate website

You may be familiar with this situation:

 

Everyone in your company is so busy doing work on the product/business/for clients that your corporate website hasn’t been updated in years. Now, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

With modern no-code website builders, there is no excuse not to get the corporate website up to speed and keep it updated! Of course, you’ll still have to create the strategy behind it and the content supporting the strategy, but at least you don’t have to wait for the product development people to get it done.

 

We found ourselves in the situation above, so we decided to completely rebuild our website from scratch. Using only the Mono Solutions website builder, a team of two designers and a marketeer designed, built, and launched our new website earlier this year.

 

This would not have been possible without the no-code philosophy.

 

4. Experience the joy of creating

If you work as a product manager, salesperson, marketeer, or any role where you are not directly involved in the creation of a product for the internet, no-code website builders let you have fun and experience the joy of creating something.

 

That’s why I recommend anyone on our team, regardless of their role, to frequently create a website themselves, whether it’s for a friend, family, their dog, or anything else. The joy of seeing a project that you fully control come to life is one of the most rewarding experiences and one I constantly seek.

 

In fact, Mono Solutions runs a yearly internal competition for all employees to enter a website that they have created using our tool. We all vote on a winner and have a ton of fun in the process.

 

5. Let the children play

When I was a kid, I used to build things from paper, string, empty toilet paper rolls, and empty food packaging. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I would have had so much fun if I had some of the options that are available to kids today.

 

I’d encourage all kids to spend a little less time on Tik Tok or Youtube every day and instead play around with no-code tools like LEGO Boost, Scratch, or Unity Playground.

 

The future of no-code

I don’t see a future where the expertise of software development is obsolete. On the contrary, I believe we’ll continue to need even smarter and more well-educated engineers to create the customer experiences of our dreams. But I do believe that no-code tools like website builders can make anyone’s life more fun and rewarding by democratizing websites.

 

 

About the author

Alette Holmberg-Nielsen is Product Director at Mono Solutions, where she helps teams, product managers and designers ship stellar products and build product culture that eats strategy for breakfast.

 

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